So, I bought the Beginner Box. Love it. I got a group of guys together who have mostly played Star Wars Saga Edition under an a***$!&, and I've constrained them to just the BB races and classes while we learn Pathfinder by playing through the canned scenario in there; after that, if they want, they can build new characters with the Core Rulebook races and classes.
During Character Creation, they are ALL OF THEM asking if they can be Evil. I say no, I'm new at this, I don't think I can handle that.
I've got a group of 5 CN douchebags (I say that with love) who are pretty much new to fantasy. What I'm looking for is perhaps a few suggestions on how to motivate them to heroics without railroading.
Money? Treasure? Fame? Hard to think of something that motivates a CN character more than personal gain.
Money and power. There is great treasure and influence to be gained by stopping x bady, or by investigating the disappearance of y in the caverns of z.
And it doesnt even have to be an exhageration. Assuming you give out treasure of normal wealth by level, they WILL get ludicrous amounts of treasure. You can also set up influencial figures to want tasks completed in exchange for future favors or political influence. Self interested characters love that sort of stuff.
Have them sit down and write out their back stories and a character analysis. It isn't a great deal of work considering the information is already in their heads. At the end of the day it is a rare man that believes he is evil.
This has a two fold effect.
1. It gives you something to play off of to help you determine ways to motivate them to move in the way you want to drive the campaign without using the "i say so" stick.
2. Most people don't want to play chaotic neutral. They want to be free to do whatever they want without any serious ramifications. Which typically is fine. By analyzing their character you are having them enforce limits on their character outside of alignment by defining the character's motivations. At which point once they've defined their characters you can sit down with them and an alignment chart and go over what they think they should be considering their analysis. At the same point try to remind them that unless they're playing a paladin or cleric alignments are not necessarily a strict point of fact. It is more than fine for an alignment to change once or twice in a character's life.
If they choose to remain chaotic neutral I wouldn't worry about it. This is because the character now has a past and exists in the world from the PC's perspective. Most people, that immediately go for the evil/what they think is chaotic neutral, think about their character in a vacuum. Sadly we don't play in vacuum, we play in a world with others. Once that is established the chaotic neutral character might steal a few baubles from a noble they dislike, screw his daughter, and head out of town laughing maniacally but this time they'll do it with a plan that doesn't wind up getting everyone they know and care about killed because they've considered that there are rules that they won't break without breaking character.
Now if all five then turn around and submit stories of orphans plotting the overall destruction of all who betrayed them and how they're going to get back on top I'd consider plan B.
Plan B. Explain to them that it is much harder to DM and to play a group of evil characters well and that all of you are new to the rules and should probably familiarize yourselves with the rules and structures before going wild and that an evil campaign would be a much higher possibility after every had played a straightforward campaign first.
2. Most people don't want to play chaotic neutral. They want to be free to do whatever they want without any serious ramifications.
I think you hit the issue on the head with that. There's only one that might actually want to be really, truly, innocent-slaughtering evil; your definition fits the rest of them pretty well, I think.
Thanks all, this was helpful.
Actually, give them a background. Make them friends or fellow veterans or something. Make sure they all know they have been together for years and are all trusting companions. Then, send them on heroic quests. Squelch “evil fratboy” stuff (rape, stealing torture, killing on innocents) in the bud by saying “hey guys, I want to run a adult, mature game here.”.