Has anyone out there found some good adventures for evil PC's -- you know, where you get to smite the paladin, blackmail the king, rob the treasury, kidnap the mayor? Wage war on the forces of good? Liberate ancient artifacts of evil?
If not, has anyone at Paizo thought about writing an arc for evil PC's? It could be very interesting!
White Wolf has done a ton of stuff for evil Sabbat vampires, but in the D&D/Pathfinder vein, the emphasis is generally on the good characters.
Part of the trouble with evil characters is party unity. You can have characters be ultimately ruthless evil SOBs who'd think nothing of sacrificing their fellow party members, but then it begs the question of why they'd want to hang out with similarly ruthless vicious sorts who will stab them in the back at the first opportunity. Wouldn't it make more sense to hang out with slightly less ruthless people?
About the only ways evil groups work well together is if they're united for a reason. A mafia family is a reasonable way to do things. An evil cult is another. The warband of an evil king. However, that said, besides the unifying force of going under the same banner, every evil party member is basically going to be audited when they get back by whatever leader is behind their evil deeds, be it mafia don, high priest or despotic king. Those who screw up will likely be summarily executed.
The first question would be: What kind of Evil?
Most people don’t have the attitude to play Evil Characters properly usually ending with them killing their team or the team killing them; they play 'evil' as 'chronically psychotic...and they give us all a bad name. (Asmodeus damn them!)
To the minority that know how to play 'good' evil characters it will ultimately become a quest to understand their motivations.
You know, this gets me to thinking about the "sweet spot" of playing in an evil campaign. I know a lot of discussion goes towards the idea of being able to play evil without being over the top or disruptive, but I think there is more to it than that.
The evil character that becomes redeemed is a perfectly acceptable archetype to play, and one that I would love to see someone pull off, but its almost seems like once someone starts playing an evil character, they don't want to let go of being evil, so you tend to have characters that are good and either fall and or stay good, or evil characters that stay evil, but not many that become good.
Another thing I see in this discussion often is about how you can play evil to work together, which is true, but at some point in time, something in your make up is evil, and as such, everyone has a point at which they will turn on their allies. It would make for an very interesting campaign to see a group that manages to take down the BBEG of a campaign, only to realize at the end that one of them could really benefit from being the last man standing, and honestly, regretfully, take on the rest of the party to realize their ambition.
Some characters ARE chronically psychotic.
I agree a campaign full of them wouldn't be fun, but if one party member were it could be interesting indeed.
Well there's a difference when the players are 'willingly' playing a mad-man/woman/thing and when they are simply being stupid and childish.
A single Chaotic Evil character CAN be a great source of role-playing experience, but the player has to be more than 'kill everything and everyone'...and sadly most are like that. A C.E. character is dangerous one way or the other but no sane group will accept anyone that may try to kill them at the drop of a hat (or something lesser).
Evil characters NEED motivations! If they're stereotypical crackpots then they wont be able to any use to a group, they'll just get in the way.
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Has anyone out there found some good adventures for evil PC's -- you know, where you get to smite the paladin, blackmail the king, rob the treasury, kidnap the mayor? Wage war on the forces of good? Liberate ancient artifacts of evil?
If not, has anyone at Paizo thought about writing an arc for evil PC's? It could be very interesting!
One of the campaigns I am a player in is a drow compaign. We're having tons of fun in it due to the freedoms of role-playing.
The campaign is basically we're a group of drow elite forces doing jobs for a powerful guild in the city. The city was "founded" (conquered duergar I believe) by outcasts of a drow city that was partially sacked. So they exiled all involved in it. During the long journey, they determined the priests of Lolth were at fault, and all the major priestesses were sacrificed. The city is run by various noble houses with the fighting college, wizard college, and powerful guilds as important contributors. Priestesses of Lolth still exist, and she is still the major deity, but survival was more important than worship, so the priestesses haven't recovered from the sacrifices and are equals in running the city.
The group does missions as I stated, but since we're "special forces" like Green Berets, Navy SEALs, etc., we can't afford to outright betray each other. Instead, we often make threats and promises of death, vengeance, and retribution during fights. Bickering never ends. We keep going forward, because in the end, we're drow. We're too proud to admit weakness, failure, and we're guided by our desires for power, wealth, prestige, and in some cases, the Lolth faith still.
I commented once we really got going is how the party feels like high school, with all the taunts, maturity, and attitudes of high schoolers. When using Drow Sign Language, I call it "texting" :)
While I certainly can't speak for Paizo, I do think that it's extremely unlikely that they will publish anything under their trademark that requires or even caters to evil characters. The last thing that they, or any other company, want is a commentator on Fox News holding up a copy of their product and talking about how it very specifically encourages cold blooded murder, kidnapping, arson, or regicide. Anyone who lived through the "DnD is of the Devil" '80s knows that it just isn't worth the hassle.
And yes, I do understand that adventurers are really just murderous hobos, but there is a difference between laying waste to the bad guys in the service of goodness and light, and a massacre of the innocent in service to dark forces. The former is defensible, the latter is just asking for a Congressional investigation.
Besides, every adventure ever written can be easily adapted to "evil" play. Just change the alignments of the bad guys and tweak the motivation of the PCs.
I think the OP is looking for published material with a "This party is evil" bent. If so, I don't think I've ever actually seen such. I would, however, like to add my voice and say that I would TOTALLY love to see some published evil modules/adventures/AP's.
I may be bad... but I feel goooood.
I think there would be quite a market -- an untapped one! -- out there for anyone willing to put some time and effort into writing adventures for evil PC's.
As far as group cohesion is concerned -- I agree that a group of CE PC's will not last long. However, get some LE PC's, along with one or maybe two NE or CE characters together -- give them a common hatred (elves!), a common goal (kill the elves!), and some common sense (work together to kill more elves!) -- and you may find that the party lasts longer than expected. Especially if the LE members keep to NE/CE ones in check. I also love the idea of a more powerful warlord/guild leader at home...someone who will have the heads of those who undermine his/her efforts to kill as many elves as possible. Or assassinate the elf prince, or whatever.
It certainly all rests on character motivation -- that is where role-playing comes in, right?
It's true that most things that purport to be "evil" are pretty tepid and lead to silliness like the Belt of Michael Jackson or dark lords (*cough* VOLDEMORT *cough*) who are mostly coasting on old laurels and hardly killing anyone these days.
But then comes the question of exactly what is evil anyway? Toadies of the dark gods? Sociopaths? Religious zealots? Mercenaries?
Until you decide what constitutes "evil" you're going to have a lot of these problems.
While I certainly can't speak for Paizo, I do think that it's extremely unlikely that they will publish anything under their trademark that requires or even caters to evil characters. The last thing that they, or any other company, want is a commentator on Fox News holding up a copy of their product and talking about how it very specifically encourages cold blooded murder, kidnapping, arson, or regicide. Anyone who lived through the "DnD is of the Devil" '80s knows that it just isn't worth the hassle.
And yes, I do understand that adventurers are really just murderous hobos, but there is a difference between laying waste to the bad guys in the service of goodness and light, and a massacre of the innocent in service to dark forces. The former is defensible, the latter is just asking for a Congressional investigation.
Besides, every adventure ever written can be easily adapted to "evil" play. Just change the alignments of the bad guys and tweak the motivation of the PCs.
I agree that such an adventure may not appeal to the public at large. However, to make a finer point, I would propose that being an evil PC does not mean you would prey on the innocent. I envision, for example, a character who sees such puny creatures as unworthy of his attention -- instead, he directs his ire toward more powerful, good-aligned targets...wizards, kings, paladins. Someone who can really offer a challenge. Someone whose undoing would truly cripple the forces of good.
I wish creating an adventure for evil PC's were as simple as changing the alignment of the villains of the adventure. But -- how could you argue, for example, that evil PC's have an overwhelming motivation to take on the devils of Council of Thieves? Maybe if they were demonic-ortiented PC's that would work, but then most of them would be CE and the party would probably fall apart.
In Burnt Offerings, it would be even more difficult to rationalize an evil party's involvement. Why would they want to take on goblins? The promise of treasure alone would probably not be worth it. And it wouldn't make much sense, I think, to change the alignment of the goblins. One would have to re-work the entire adventure, change townspeople to drow, and change goblins to elves, or some such.
It's true that most things that purport to be "evil" are pretty tepid and lead to silliness like the Belt of Michael Jackson or dark lords (*cough* VOLDEMORT *cough*) who are mostly coasting on old laurels and hardly killing anyone these days.
But then comes the question of exactly what is evil anyway? Toadies of the dark gods? Sociopaths? Religious zealots? Mercenaries?
Until you decide what constitutes "evil" you're going to have a lot of these problems.
Great point! My 6 year old son commented on Star Wars the other day, saying, "The Imperials think they're the good guys, right?" It is, to a certain extent, all relative. The tribe of goblins living life in relative quiet seclusion probably views that band of adventurers raiding their homes as "evil." Not a bad plot line -- goblins get revenge on the humans who wiped out their tribe. Something like that would work.
Great point! My 6 year old son commented on Star Wars the other day, saying, "The Imperials think they're the good guys, right?" It is, to a certain extent, all relative. The tribe of goblins living life in relative quiet seclusion probably views that band of adventurers raiding their homes as "evil." Not a bad plot line -- goblins get revenge on the humans who wiped out their tribe. Something like that would work.It's true that most things that purport to be "evil" are pretty tepid and lead to silliness like the Belt of Michael Jackson or dark lords (*cough* VOLDEMORT *cough*) who are mostly coasting on old laurels and hardly killing anyone these days.
But then comes the question of exactly what is evil anyway? Toadies of the dark gods? Sociopaths? Religious zealots? Mercenaries?
Until you decide what constitutes "evil" you're going to have a lot of these problems.
Pretty much the whole premise of this webcomic:
But even aside from that. Certainly the Hellknights of Chelliax dont see themselves as evil(or at least most of them). They are however the aggressive agents of a devil worshiping government. Much like the imperials, though they bring law and order, they do so ruthlessly and with little regard to the value of life. They likely however do not see themselves as the 'bad guys'
It is an example (along with star wars imperials) where you have evil, but not the bickering chaos of much of the stereotype for evil. It is quite possible for lawful evil characters especially to work together, but even neutral evil characters can work in a party.
The last thing that they, or any other company, want is a commentator on Fox News holding up a copy of their product and talking about how it very specifically encourages cold blooded murder, kidnapping, arson, or regicide.
Not to start a political debate, but from what I've seen of Fox News, they implicitly encourage "regicide". I could definitely see Glenn Beck reading passage from such a book. He would "just be asking questions", not specifically encouraging any of his listeners to actually follow his guidance. LOL (just to be clear - I don't like either left or right, this just seemed like a good time to pick on the right).
Regardless, an evil campaign would be a very nice change of pace. I think my D&D/Pathfinder group would buy it in a heartbeat.
The furthest (?) my group ever got into an evil campaign was less than 10 sessions. The PCs were the minions of a beholder that was also a high-level wizard, and he used geas spells to force them to work together. The PCs were monsters -- a minotaur, a gargoyle, a yuan-ti ranger, a drow wizard, and a troll. It was a blast while it lasted.
The beholder grew wary of them, and decided to send them on an endless quest to "map the UNDERDARK -- all of it". Once the geas spells wore off, they naturally began to bicker.
The best scene, hands down, was when Render the gargoyle decided to screw with a congregation in a church of Pelor. He flew down the belltower into the church during a service and killed a junior priest, confident that his DR/magic would protect him. Unfortunately for him, two paladins armed with +1 longswords were present and began to open a can on him. As he flew away, he arrogantly shouted, "You will always remember this as the day you ALMOST killed RENDER THE GARGOYLE!! Muhahahaha!!" So, now that the priests had his name, scrying on him became alot easier. That night, the evil party was forced to flee from their secret cave hideout by a mob of torch-and-pitchfork types led by clerics and paladins. Priceless!
The end came when a replacement PC had to be introduced (the minotaur was eaten by a pair of umber hulks). The replacement PC (the yuan-ti ranger) had acquired a band of kobold minions prior to meeting the other PCs, and upon meeting him, the drow wizard was (naturally) covetous of the nifty kobold "army" (I think there were like 20 of them), and demanded custody. The yuan-ti (naturally) declined in a most insulting fashion, and, well, things devolved quickly. That was the end of our evil experiment! :)
*snip*
Besides, every adventure ever written can be easily adapted to "evil" play. Just change the alignments of the bad guys and tweak the motivation of the PCs.*snip*
I wish creating an adventure for evil PC's were as simple as changing the alignment of the villains of the adventure. But -- how could you argue, for example, that evil PC's have an overwhelming motivation to take on the devils of Council of Thieves? Maybe if they were demonic-ortiented PC's that would work, but then most of them would be CE and the party would probably fall apart.
In Burnt Offerings, it would be even more difficult to rationalize an evil party's involvement. Why would they want to take on goblins?...
I can't comment on those adventure paths specifically, as I don't own them, but changing from good to evil is usually just as simply as swapping out stat blocks. Devils become Angels, goblins become halflings, etc.
Sometimes it's easier than that. Rescue the princess from the ogres becomes rescue the princess (who is needed for the sacrifice to the dark gods) from the ogres. Got orcs? Now you have elves. Got a cave? Now you have a hollowed out tree. Want to earn a few bucks? Raid the tomb of the sainted martyr instead of the tomb of endless darkness. Got an adventure with brigands? Now it's an adventure with the Just Lord's Garrison.
As for Good and Evil and Self Image, I just don't think fantasy role playing games are really suited for those kinds of explorations of ambiguity. Not because it's inappropriate for gaming, quite the opposite. Gaming is a great way to explore moral ambiguity. But any game that has alignments, by definition, isn't going to allow for much debate on the topic. Am I evil? Let's cast Detect Evil and find out. Huh, guess I am (or not).
Now, it certainly is possible to scrap the alignment system, and just about every DM has done it at one point or the other, but games like DnD and Pathfinder are very much "pick a side' games, and I'm okay with that. YMMV
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I've only ever seen one published d20 adventure tailored for evil groups, No Mercy, where you are expected to crush a slave revolt in some miserable city or somesuch. (personally I figure most groups sided with the rebellion anyway. row row fight the powah and all that)
One thing to add to the whole group-cohesiveness issue is that just because someone is evil doesn't mean they have to be incapable of caring about their comrades, whether it's because of honor, sentimental attatchment, or genuine love of friends and family.
Thula the priestess of Shalak the Venom Goddess still cares about her foolhardy, hotblooded assassin brother and their little sister working at the inn back home after all.
I've only participated in one "evil"-campaign, and half the people in that were more neutralish really. Conan RPG, set in Stygia. Lots of manipulation and whatnot but everyone with one exception avoided @#$%ing there they ate. The fact that almost all of them shared an origin(freed gladiatorial slaves) helped get them all on the same page too.
PLAYERS IN THAT GAME KEEP OUT:
Well, i've never tried playing an evil campaign in a fantasy setting, but i have DMed (or GMed, whatever)a Star Wars game where the group was part of a crime syndicate. It was actually interesting how it happened, but thats another story. All and all, it turned out pretty good. The characters took orders from the crime boss, and they carried out the missions without too much infighting.
I think the key to playing evil adventures is that the PCs need to have a good reason to stick together. That way the backstabbing and such is kept to a minimum.
It's been said before, but evil PCs form parties and go on adventures for many of the same reasons that good PCs do.
Foremost among those reasons being loot, power, and fabulous prizes.
Writing for evil PCs is both more complicated and more subtle than switching demons for angels and goblins for elves. Really, I think you could take any standard adventure and turn it into an 'evil adventure' by writing in a slightly different style. Don't rely on altruism to motivate the PCs, for one. And for two, keep in mind that the heroes are ready and willing to do nasty things in order to accomplish their goals.
For instance, I'm looking at Seven Days to the Grave right now, and one encounter involves a certain masked hero asking the PCs to smuggle a wanted woman out of town. In an 'evil adventure' this could have still happened, but the hook wouldn't have been "I need a favor from you", it would have been "I have something you want". Similarly, it would have gone into much greater detail on what happens if the PCs blackmail him or deliver her to the corrupt authorities. Or, alternately, a compelling reason for them NOT to.
Evil PCs are tougher to handle because you can't put the "good thing" before them and expect them to do it. This doesn't mean that the adventure has to be about assassinating paladins or other such nonsense; in fact, depending on how it was written, you might not even know that you were reading an 'evil adventure'.
I've only ever seen one published d20 adventure tailored for evil groups, No Mercy, where you are expected to crush a slave revolt in some miserable city or somesuch. (personally I figure most groups sided with the rebellion anyway. row row fight the powah and all that)
One thing to add to the whole group-cohesiveness issue is that just because someone is evil doesn't mean they have to be incapable of caring about their comrades, whether it's because of honor, sentimental attatchment, or genuine love of friends and family.
Thula the priestess of Shalak the Venom Goddess still cares about her foolhardy, hotblooded assassin brother and their little sister working at the inn back home after all.
I've only participated in one "evil"-campaign, and half the people in that were more neutralish really. Conan RPG, set in Stygia. Lots of manipulation and whatnot but everyone with one exception avoided @#$%ing there they ate. The fact that almost all of them shared an origin(freed gladiatorial slaves) helped get them all on the same page too.
PLAYERS IN THAT GAME KEEP OUT:
** spoiler omitted **
Holy smokes! Alderac actually has published a number of d20 evil adventures! Cool!
Man oh man... I just can't bring myself to play an evil character. My usual character types are Paladins and Angels. Am I just too much of a goody goody? I like being the good guy... being the hero. Vanquishing evil... the whole nine yards.
Yet I had no problem playing Sabbat in Vampire. Odd. In D&D though, a neutral alignment's the worst I'm willing to do.
Part of the trouble with the whole "evil" thing is that everyone has different definitions, and various players have different comfort levels for various items including but not limited to gore, sex, cruelty, and metaphysical woo. Having a blood-covered demon show up to devour souls is fine with some players but they'll blanch if horror if you have an otherwise human NPC pitch an inconvenient baby down a well. And don't even get started on anything to do with rape.
Consequently, a whole lot of evil is reduced to pantomime devils and "ooky" iconography: bats, skulls, snakes, spiders, and maybe an occasional goat head. There's nothing inherently evil in any of these things apart from them violating various cultural taboos. It's like using a pork chop as your unholy symbol: It's profane to enough current-day religions that it's conceivably anathema to some fantasy ones as well. But to other people, pork chops are the blue plate special at the local diner.
Unless all your players and your GM are on the same page of what "evil" is and what degree of "evil" they're wanting in a game for themselves, it's not going to work.
Personally I have a real problem with games where the BBEG thinks he's the paragon of wickedness because he killed a few people and cackled while he was doing it. A garden variety arsonist can cause more death, destruction, pain and suffering in an afternoon.
Check out Reverse Dungeon (IIRC) from the 2nd Edition days. Basically, you get to play the monsters as a party of adventurers enters your dungeon home.
If you're going to talk about adventures for older editions of D&D, I can't help but mention those two old "Dungeon" magazine adventures for monster PCs: "Monsterquest" from issue #10, and "Rank Amateurs" from #22. They're pretty funny. And the latter adventure I mentioned was written for the D&D (Mystara) Gazetteer #10: The Orcs of Thar, which is all about monster PCs.
A good example of an Evil party working together can be found in the "War of the Spider Queen" books, edited by R.A. Salvatore. It is centered around a group of Drow (duh) and a Draegloth, and there is much infighting and backstabbing to be had, though eventually the ultimate goals are (kind of) achieved.
A good example of an Evil party working together can be found in the "War of the Spider Queen" books, edited by R.A. Salvatore. It is centered around a group of Drow (duh) and a Draegloth, and there is much infighting and backstabbing to be had, though eventually the ultimate goals are (kind of) achieved.
Heh, as long as you don't mind the resolution to the "campaign" being:
I've played in several "evil" campaigns, and to be honest the players pretty well set the tone themselves. A published evil adventure would be nice, but the kinds of players I played with had very specific plans for the evilness; they fortified a HQ, gathered minions, took over surrounding territory, infiltrated distant nobility, even made "drug farms" where they could grow the materials needed for an illegal, addictive alchemical product. All the DM had to do was supply the background regional material and play reactionary to the players intentions. I remember the DM having fun because he could roll up NPC like regular PC types(less gear of course) without having to worry about motivating every enemy as a "bad guy" or having to motivate the players; they were plenty motivated themselves.
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Has anyone out there found some good adventures for evil PC's -- you know, where you get to smite the paladin, blackmail the king, rob the treasury, kidnap the mayor? Wage war on the forces of good? Liberate ancient artifacts of evil?
If not, has anyone at Paizo thought about writing an arc for evil PC's? It could be very interesting!
The closest Paizo gets is the Chelaxian Faction in the Pathfinder (Living style) Campaign. The PC's hail from, obviosly, a nation of devil worshipers. Of course evil pc's are prohibited but nuetral and lawful nuetral can be close enough if RP'd correctly. In fact walking that line can be great fun.
The faction missions (and the way they are written) add a great deal to walking that line.
The thing with evil pc's is the level of maturity of the players involved. Effective evil pc's require a higher standard of RP than Bob the nuetral fighter, Melock the eccentric wizard or Vladimus the Riteous Paladin of Goodness.
In an all drow game run annually at the local convention the action is based on pre genned drow pc's with exacting backgrounds. The slot always sells out. Last time the party made it to the first Y in the passage to their stated mission. After defeating the kuo toa ambush with no pc casualties (oh, 20 minutes into the session) the inter party intrique began. Three and a half hours later 3 of 8 pc's limped back to the drow city from the first Y in the passage.
So the evil game REALLY depends on what your players can handle.
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Evil is much more proactive.
Good characters go off to rescue people or clear out evil cults or smash evil hordes. Evil characters kidnap the people, start up the evil cults or raise the evil hordes.
When playing an evil character (coming from my experiences playing games like Paranoia or Vampire, where the characters don't have the Evil alignment, but are morally-challenged), I find that adventure seeds get in the way of whatever my characters agenda is, and are only dealt with begrudgingly, or in-so-much as they interfere with said agenda.
The best agendas *require* powerful allies. Dark overlords never seem to prosper on their own. So long as your allies covet different things, different geographical regions, different races as pleasure-slaves, different resources, etc. you've got a built-in reason to work together to attain your goals. In Vampire, one clan hoards money, another hoards secrets and yet another hoards magical lore. A cabal of these vampires can work together quite smoothly, each consolidating the sort of power and status that matters to them, without competing because they all want the same thing.
A D&D party can work the same way. If the Rogue wants to take over the criminal underworld, the Wizard wants to form his own secret college of necromancy under the city and the Cleric wants to convert the local populace to his red-handed goddess of murder, they can all work together to help each other achieve their respective goals, since they aren't in conflict.
And if player four shows up with a civilization-hating Druid who wants to burn the city to the ground, *then* there's a problem. But it's not that the character is evil, it's that he's chosen to play a character that doesn't play well with the others. He'd be just as much of a problem player if he chose to play a Paladin in this campaign.
It isn't the alignment of the characters that determines if the game is going to hell, it's the willingness of the players to work together to make the game fun for everyone.
The characters, no matter how evil or psychotic, aren't in control. The players are.
in my opinion it is best to make a campaign about evil vs a greater or other kind of evil.
Ofcourse the occasional conflict with good forces can still happen, players of evil characters are rarely very subtle about their evil natures though, so strong bonds should be forced between the characters in some way if the campaign is to last any ammount of time.
Themed evil campaigns, like all undead or drow can work well enough, but a bunch of random evil characters will be hard to control by even an experienced GM.
I ran an evil sandbox game. I just made a map, filled it with countries and cities and points of interesting and gave the evil PCs their own country. They were all high level Evil Overlords. The goal of the game? Whatever they wanted. Sometimes they conquered neighboring kingdoms. Sometimes they sought after rare beasts to run horrible experiments on. Some days they just stayed home and defended the castle from rampaging paladins.
For the most part, I let them decide what to do. Everybody had TONS of fun until they all killed each other over something trivial.
I've never understood why people say that invariably an evil party will fall apart due to backstabbing and the like. What, evil people can't be friends? In fact, I wouldn't say it's out of line for evil people to actually care about each other and be good to each other. It's everyone else they can't stand and should die.
I've never understood why people say that invariably an evil party will fall apart due to backstabbing and the like. What, evil people can't be friends? In fact, I wouldn't say it's out of line for evil people to actually care about each other and be good to each other. It's everyone else they can't stand and should die.
This may just be me, but I think sometimes, though, people see "really edgy neutral" as evil. Sure, you can have friends, and you can even love your family.
But being evil is ultimately a selfish thing. In the end, if you have some goal that you desire above all others, and the only thing in your way is slitting your buddy's throat . . . hm . . .
Honestly, its the classic trope regarding evil. Heck, the first person we see Anakin Force Choke on screen is Padme, the woman that he turned to the Dark Side for.
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Seems a common occurrence is evil groups implode. Is it a bug or a feature? The common origin acting as a unifying catalyst isn't unique to evil parties. As far as adventure paths are concerned, the answer is relatively simple- motivate the player characters to want the same thing as the BBEG, as the saying goes: "there can only be one"
I can also picture the "Alpha" situation keeping a group from imploding, especially if said evil party is actually partially evil, partially neutral. If one guys is the leader, lets say an driven LE type, and he has a friend that is LN and would follow him to Hell and back, probably no problem.
Similarly, if someone else in the party is the NE "I just wanna be rich" guy, and the "Alpha" LE guys achieves his goal and (this is the important part) makes sure the NE guy is well paid, NE guy has no reason to bump off LE guy, unless LE guy is holding out on him (which if you watch Mafia movies, always seems to happen even between buddies).
Finally, everyone is friends with CE scary guy that does unsavory things, but not in front of them. If the Alpha makes sure unsavory CE guy can do these things without anyone having to see it up close, CE guy with horrible habits is fine. Unless LE guy happens to be close to someone or something that really, really temps CE unsavory guy.
So its possible, but its kind of like a juggling act to keep all of the interests in the air so that no one really feels that they have to act on one another. Of course, if Alpha LE guy is smart, he's also got lots of dirt on NE greedy guy and CE unsavory guy.
I have a question along the lines of this thread, and I was wondering if anyone could help. I am going to be running a Drow based campaign, with a different race list, but mostly the same classes. In my group, there is a player who almost always plays a paladin, and it is pretty much all he is good at. My question is this: does anyone have any ideas on how to make an evil Paladin, Chaotic or Lawful (preferably chaotic), similar to the Unearthed Arcana Variant Paladins?
I've always thought it daft that people see evil as so two dimensional, and that evil parties can't stick together.
Pirate crews, groups of outlaws, despots and tyrants have somehow managed to work it out in the real world, so why not fantasy?
Prince John and the Sheriff of Nottingham had a great partnership... I don't get why Evil PC's are so fast to turn the knife on each other, and thus threaten their own survival.
I have a question along the lines of this thread, and I was wondering if anyone could help. I am going to be running a Drow based campaign, with a different race list, but mostly the same classes. In my group, there is a player who almost always plays a paladin, and it is pretty much all he is good at. My question is this: does anyone have any ideas on how to make an evil Paladin, Chaotic or Lawful (preferably chaotic), similar to the Unearthed Arcana Variant Paladins?
Best to start a new thread. Otherwise you probably won't get many replies.
This is the nature of Evil. It is selfish. It doesn't really "love" or "care about" others, but only "wants" them or enjoys the way the others make them feel in their company. There may be strong bonds formed, but slights will get in the way and fester.
Ultimately, Good always wins (in the long run) because Evil cannot put aside its differences and work together for long periods of time. It will seek its own selfish interests, upend its leadership and invariably destroy itself. Granted, it's a matter of time, and an entire campaign may run its course without imploding ... simply because the proper catalyst hasn't entered the scene. In a larger campaign with a meta-plot and such it may take lifetimes for the overarching Evil to crumble and the PCs and subsequent parties of descendants may prosper for generations, but ultimately they will fall.
And if you're one of the evil people enjoying one of the generations of prosperity, the downside for you is what precisely?
As much as it may be fun to have evil be sociopathic axe murderers, crazed cultists, and Ritalin-deprived bandits, these aren't the sort of people who build evil empires, and in fact, the most successful evil empires may not be all that evil.
One campaign I ran, the Empress was known as the Suzereigna. She was a very old woman who had come to the throne as a small child and proceeded to forge an empire over the years, but was a master of politics and was somewhere between Queen Victoria, Maria Theresa of Austria, Elizabeth I, and Catherine the Great, with perhaps small fillips of Louis XIV thrown in. She was also very Lawful Evil but the peasants adored her because her basic MO was "Why should I crush the peasants under my boot heel? Happy peasants are productive peasants! I'll crush the nobles under my boot heel instead!" And the nobles were commanded to come to her court and spend all their gold on spectacle and frippery to win her favor while leaving the peasants at home to work the fields and not engage in endless border wars for their stupid little kingdoms which were now part of the empire.
There were also other little parts of her evil empire. One was that magic was illegal, though in practice, it was about as illegal as alcohol was during Prohibition, and the easiest way to get burnt at the stake as a witch was to be guilty of treason or tax evasion.
Now comes the question of "How evil is this?" The empress was ruthless and selfish, but overall guided by a principle of enlightened self-interest rather than sadism.
I think that an evil party that was built around the same lines could be exceedingly successful.