....In an evil game that is.
....In an evil game that is.
almost never.
Questions:
Age of players?
DM?
Allignments ? (stupid-evil?)
And Why?
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this is going to end in tears
Depends on how attached you are to the story-line and the players to their characters. If the answer is "not much" across the board, then you are good to go. I might let it boil down to a final session of PVP with the group divided (preferably even on both sides). But, I wouldn't let this happen more than once, and as long as EVERYONE is okay with it.
If yours or a single player's answer is "very attached", then I'd try to steer everyone away from killing each other. Put in other elements to satisfy their evil whims.
Hmmm, in an evil game, I'd kind of expect such kind of shenanigans unless there was a more powerful reason not to engage in intra-party conflict.
As a DM, I'd be happy with it if the players of both characters were happy with the situation, and accepting of the likely death of one or both of their PCs.
Of course, as a DM, I might not expect such a campaign to go very far, although I do believe an evil(ish) campaign could have potential with mature role players and a strong goal to bind a party together. That kind of thing is pretty hard to pull off though.
At the same time when it's okay in a group of good or neutral characters:
When the players of both the intended killer and intended victim have expressly agreed to it, or agreed that it is an acceptable thing to do.
On the other hand, I don't allow evil characters in-game. Most of my regular players wouldn't want to play them, and I find the few times I've allowed it with newer players, it's often been used as an excuse to act sexist and racist and expect to get away with it.
(In that regard it's been useful to weed out people we don't want to hang around with anyway, though).
An evil campaign has a tendency to romantizise horrible things, or sometimes even frame them as good, so I stay far away from that.
Not that this has happened but...
I see LE as being unyielding to stupidity and actions that put either the PC or the mission at risk. In novels, typically evil individuals tend to slay underlings or beings that dont produce desired results.
Im not saying kill a PC because he makes a bad roll or makes a bad call once. But if you have an idiot PC that gung hoes things when stealth or charismatic abilities are the keys to success and causes much more stress, at what point would you think an EVIL character would deal with it permanently?
PS. All evil character game (Way of the Wicked)
Playing an antipaladin, I have to ask my Dm when it's okay to not kill my partners when they fall in combat, and I have death knell prepared to help me out, and my code says I don't care about my compatriots and that I am just using them for my own gain so... yeah.
PvP can be a lot of fun if the players are into it and don't feel like they are getting ousted. We played a game once between 4 players and 2 of us (the lawful good paladin: me, and the lawful neutral samurai: my roommate) sided one way and the other 2 players (both chaotic neutral, a sorcerer and an arcane trickster) sided on the side of appeasing the bad guy.
The sorcerer had made a deal with a devil to get the party out of a jam, and had been forced to help this thing later on by way of a geas, then he was forced to take the princess to him, or he would die. The devil also warned the city that if he didn't receive her he would kill everyone. The sorcerer and the trickster decided to kidnap her and we had to go after them.
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When the players of both PCs are okay with it.
When the players of both PCs are okay with it.
When really WOULD they be okay with it? Unless of course, they hate their characters.
People do some dumb things and expect because its a game, you should be okay with it. I understand in a good game but evil isnt real tolerant for incompetence.
Not really relevant to me, since I don't do evil games.
But as to when they'd be okay with it: if the group happened to be more interested in the drama at stake than persisting with their own characters. It's a valid playstyle, even if not everyone shares it.
'Evil game' is usually code in my experience for 'players want to be jerks to one another and have it be legitimized'. Not always, but pretty often.
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When it makes sense for the story and the characters, presuming we had discussed before the game began (or at least before the given characters were introduced it was a possibilty.)
I played in a long running game where one of the PC's was evil, but had a shared goal with the rest of the party...for now. We all knew at any point he could turn on us.
But we all knew that (at least out of character), it was part of the story that we all signed off on playing, so if it happened, it happened.
It never did, but if it had it would have been part of the logical progression of the story, in the same way that sometimes the party is betrayed.
I've always said that for an evil party to work they have to be twice as willing to work towards group cohesion as a good party.
I'm currently playing in a game where I'm a Chaotic Evil Carnival Barker Oracle of the Dark Tapestry, and he's the most about keeping the party together. There was one player who he would have made small moves against to hinder, but he was always working towards keeping the group together. He would would die for the group. And would in turn expect people to murder for him.
But my general philosophy is that if player conflict ever gets to violence there has been a major failure of the group and the GM.
Not that Im stating conflict with a party member AS THE PLAYER. I guess I just assume to truely role play evil, you have to role play evil. Evil doesnt suffer setbacks or incompetence. Evil doesnt let one persons failure impact his goal.
Thats just my thought of evil
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I feel a little silly about it now but I recall many years ago wanting to eliminate another PC because he was taking the vast majority of all the gold we came across for himself only. Acutually, come to think.of it, I a very much expect to get Wealth By Level, WBL and would still get.really ti ked off about it being askewed today.
Little background, it was a White Wolf Dark Ages campaign. I was told.it would be vampire chronicle and bought said book. At the game, I then learned the ST/GM was useing a variety of monsters. One player made a werewolf in a group of mostly vampires. In this system, werewolves majorly kick vamp ass. I felt like the player was useing this knowledge of how heavily the math game mechanics were on his side and that he was a bully during the game. The player was cool but I felt that character had to go. I tried to make non aggression packs with others and was a little surprised that they were not well received, though nobody openly made trouble about it either. It slowed me down more but I still did not think.they would.actually come to his aid anyway and stilled planed to make a move at the right time.nobody seemed interested. I tried to build resores , a painstaking process as the ww took so many but I felt sure, he, the pc had to go, not the player. I grew tired.of.how often the group cancelled and how much time was wasted bullshiting instead of playing. Especially how much time was wasted by people who did not.game and knew.we gamed at that time but came overanywY just to BS. A 2 hour commute EACH WAY did not help much either. I was dissatisfied with the chronicle (all the vs time, not nearly as much as the mo.ey/bully issue) and withdrew from it before I felt the character was ready to make a move. I still believe I would have made that move if I stuck in that chronicle.
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When the players of both PCs are okay with it.When really WOULD they be okay with it? Unless of course, they hate their characters.
One person I gamed with gave the rest of the group permission to kill his character because she was sabotaging the group's mission. He was a big fan of RPing your character accurately and didn't really care what the outcome for his character was.
We managed to avoid killing his PC, but it was a dicey thing.
In Way of the Wicked, as soon as you become a real party you've...
Almost never. Now I have had players that don't mind and would not hold it against each other, but other than that it would not be allowed.
Death knell is such a short term gain that I seriously the code commands you to. Just because you can doesn't mean you should. Gotta differentiate between the disposable lackeys, and the experts.
this is going to end in tears
I love these little moments of calm before the crying starts.
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Not that Im stating conflict with a party member AS THE PLAYER. I guess I just assume to truely role play evil, you have to role play evil. Evil doesnt suffer setbacks or incompetence. Evil doesnt let one persons failure impact his goal.
Thats just my thought of evil
YOU choose if you want to play Darth Vader-evil. It's also very possible to play Dexter-evil, or any other variant that doesn't kick every puppy she sees.
Honestly, evil characters feel much more real and believable when they have friends that they genuinely care about, and/or when they have morals, just bad morals.
The only scenario where I would encourage violence among PCs would be if they are not an adventuring party in the first place -- say, if they were the leaders of factions in a multi-sided war. In that case, killing one another off would basically be the whole point of the adventure.
Maybe this is my just my group, but I've always found inner party combat (and noncombatant conflicts), to be much more fun and exciting than regular encounters, both as a player and a GM. I think the reason for it is because in those kinds of situations, the characters involved are all fully fleshed out people, which most NPC's and monsters aren't, unless they are really important (bosses, kings, etc.) because of the vast amount of work that would take for the GM (to be clear, I have no problem with generic villagers and shopkeepers, but they are less interesting for role playing usually). I know as a player I would hate it if I was trying to do something (such as attack another pc, or anything else for that matter) and the GM just said "no". It is a role playing game, if I can't do what my character would do, than what is the point of making a detailed character? Granted this usually doesn't matter, because I tend to be a good guy, for the GM's sake if nothing else, but on the rare occasion I am evil, I want to be able to be evil (and I don't mean random acts of crime or attacking PC's for no reason).
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....In an evil game that is.
Evil "game" or evil "campaign"? Semantically, there's a world of difference (no pun intended).
There are two real ways to run an Evil campaign without having it derail itself into backstabbing, party-ending, campaign-ending, PvP madness.
1. Stop playing like idiot Sith. Real evil doesn't go around killing anyone and everyone that makes a tiny mistake. Real evil uses their allies, trains them, supports them, keeps them around to be part of their evil machinations. Rommel lost battles (not many, he was a brilliant military mind) but Hitler didn't kill him, not ever. Real evil is like that. To make this work with a bunch of players at the table, you need two things:
a. Mature players who agree that the Evil campaign is not a license for unrestricted PvP.
b. A NPC leader with amazing power (demon prince, evil arch mage, etc.) who forbids in-party killing and keeps very close magical watch on his minions (the PCs) and won't tolerate that crap.
Be prepared to have this overlord permanently kill any PC that gets out of line, but let that player start a new PC at a lower level (his penalty for forgetting the agreement not to PvP).
2. Fully allow it. Have every player create multiple characters. They play one, and keep the rest as backups. No, they can't be clones (until they are able to make in-game clones magically) so each character must be different. Level these characters so they are always ready to jump in at an appropriate level. Make sure ALL players know that this is an unrestricted PvP campaign. Still, they should have goals, and they should work together to achieve them, just like a non-Evil campaign, but they can use PvP if they find a reason - also, they can be PvP killed too. Make them all understand that if one of them kills another, the survivors might take that as a very serious problem and respond by killing the murderous PC. Then, when someone dies, that player just selects a backup character.
Side note: If you choose option 2, be prepared for someone to metagame and realize that backstabbing their buddy is a good source of XP and an even better source of loot, and there's really no cost because the player will be back in the game in a matter of minutes with his replacement character (who also has a character sheet full of loot). In fact, the PCs never need to go adventuring, they can just keep killing and looting each other if you allow it. So the best thing to do is find a way to make sure they don't profit by PvP. I do this by awarding no XP for killing each other and insisting that new characters get ridiculously under-equipped - it's the responsibility of the group to provide gear for the new replacement. If they don't like that, they can keep the old guy alive, or resurrect him, or whatever. This rule takes away all reasons for killing each other for profit, so now they only do it for RP, which is the only good reason anyway.
Once again we are bested by Godwin's law.
Based on DM__Blake's post, i think I figured out why everyone here has more of a problem with inner-party combat than me. In my games, even if I (or the gm) don't specifically say before hand it's a game where pvp is allowed, we never assumed that the standard was that it wasn't. Players play their characters until they die, then they just make another character. We also haven't had anyone meta gaming to get more stuff by killing friends, but I think that's because we generally just don't use experience. We've found its better to just level up at the end of the adventure we are in (or after something important happens in a multi-level adventure) than to use xp. It just seems to make more sense that way rather than if the pcs level up in the first encounter of the next adventure, just because they missed something in the current adventure, which seems kind of anti-climactic. For a DM, that break to level up is a good way to get ready for the next adventure, and for the players, it adds a better sense of accomplishment at the end of the adventure. It's like I've always said about RPing games (be they DnD, Pathfinder, video games, whatever) the best possible reward is experience. Personally, I find that no matter what reward a player is given, the one they feel most rewarded for is xp/levels, because that is the one that progresses their character, not the +1 longsword, or even the staff of power.
Anytime evil players have been present in a game (I've played) it has gone poorly. Either they are the lone evil character and eventually it is revealed by their commiting some heinously evil act, in which case they are killed in short order by the rest of the party. Or at least half of the party (or more) is evil and eventually either the good characters decide they must kill the evil, the evil characters decide they must kill good for cramping their style, or the evil characters just try to kill the other evil characters because this is F*%$ING HIGHLANDER AND THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE!
In any event, no matter which case it is the campaign usually derails and dies along with the PCs. IMO PVP should always be discouraged, usually its not a problem with good aligned PCs. It doesn't take much effort with some Good and some Neutral PCs. With Evil characters present or an all evil party you generally have to use some "powerful pact magic" that cause everyone to slowly die if one dies. People are much more willing to save even their most hated enemy if that means their death is imminent too.
Evil doesn't have to mean stupid or without any connections; you just have to make sure that the characters have a personal reason to stay together.
I'm just responding to the OP's question so I haven't read all of the thread. I apologize if it's redundant.
Anyhow, I think the problem with evil games sometimes is that either the players and/or GM don't know how to keep the party from in-fighting in the first place. There are a lot of people who think that playing evil PC's gives them carte blanche in initiating PVP and it does to a point. The fact of the matter is that in order to accomplish the end-goal of reaching level 20 and finishing out a campaign is that characters need to work together, so it's up to the players to be mature and find ways to stop their PC's from becoming psychopathic killers just to kill (and if they want to be that way, then keep it to NPC's).
A party of CE PC's can play together as there are many societies (the Drow for one) that are CE and flourish. Sure there are killings amongst them but there are also codes (honor among thieves anyone?) that they follow where having more of their people around is better for each individual and increases their own chances for survival. The most powerful rule and the weaker gnash their teeth, plot, scheme, and wait for an opening.
So it's up to the GM to give the party something to work towards and a reason to not try to kill each other off right away. It's up to the players to keep their impulses in check (at least until their PC's get what they want). I usually have a higher power (guild-master/king/warlord/god) directing the PC's and telling them that they need to work together to accomplish X and that if they fight amongst themselves and kill each other then there will be hell to pay for the killer(s).
In my games: PC on PC violence should be a simmer coming to a boil, the first insult shouldn't mean a fight, but rather a grudge and scheming to get back at the other PC. This should happen for a while until there is a major blow-up and then the other evil PC's can sit back, enjoy an ale, and watch as the two tear each other apart.
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Based on DM__Blake's post, i think I figured out why everyone here has more of a problem with inner-party combat than me. In my games, even if I (or the gm) don't specifically say before hand it's a game where pvp is allowed, we never assumed that the standard was that it wasn't. Players play their characters until they die, then they just make another character.
Dying to a DM-played monster or NPC is one thing, dying to a PC controlled by your friend at the gaming table is a whole different thing. I've seen it cause fights. I've seen it break friendships. Sure, maybe the guy with the dead character was too overly invested in his character and let it get to him too much. That's practically a given. But some people play this as a "Role Playing" game rather than just a "Roll Playing" game, and for some that do, building a persona and identifying with that persona is much of the charm - for those players, having a friend trash all that work and effort and persona identification can be a very personal issue indeed.
We also haven't had anyone meta gaming to get more stuff by killing friends, but I think that's because we generally just don't use experience. We've found its better to just level up at the end of the adventure we are in (or after something important happens in a multi-level adventure) than to use xp. It just seems to make more sense that way rather than if the pcs level up in the first encounter of the next adventure, just because they missed something in the current adventure, which seems kind of anti-climactic. For a DM, that break to level up is a good way to get ready for the next adventure, and for the players, it adds a better sense of accomplishment at the end of the adventure.
That's a great houserule, I've used it too for the very same reasons, but we can't assume it's a standard way everyone plays, which is why I called out the possible issue with metagaming for rewards.
It's like I've always said about RPing games (be they DnD, Pathfinder, video games, whatever) the best possible reward is experience. Personally, I find that no matter what reward a player is given, the one they feel most rewarded for is xp/levels, because that is the one that progresses their character, not the +1 longsword, or even the staff of power.
True, XP is king, but encounter CR vs. Party Level is a clunky, but mostly workable system for planning what the PCs can handle and what they cannot, and when you give out too much treasure, the CR system becomes unmanageable. If a group of appropriately equipped 12th level characters devolve into PvP and a couple of them die, then the survivors can loot them and keep their stuff - now they have too much loot. Add two new replacement characters with appropriate loot, and if they don't get along, more deaths and more looting and more replacements with appropriate loot, and if they don't get along...
It can spiral out of control really fast. Soon, you could have a sole-survivor with enough loot for a dozen 12th level characters. Even if the new replacements finally get along, this guy is a veritable god compared to the replacements, especially if he cashed in that loot and bought himself the appropriate equipment for a 20th level character.
I wasn't trying to suggest that players might really try to game the system this way. It might even be unintentional - they're just killing each other for RP reasons, but the loot stacks up anyway.
Side note, all this stuff I talked about can be avoided if everyone at the table is a mature role-player and everyone is fully on board, and remains full on board, with the expectations and objectives of the Evil campaign. Sadly, this is a rare game indeed. You bring 5 or 6 people, even mature gamers, to a game and you get 5 or 6 different expectations and outlooks; it's a rare thing for everyone to be on the same page all the time. And it only takes one of them, just one PC, to light the fuse and often by the time the dust settles, the campaign can already be in ruin.
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Hmmm, in an evil game, I'd kind of expect such kind of shenanigans unless there was a more powerful reason not to engage in intra-party conflict.
As a DM, I'd be happy with it if the players of both characters were happy with the situation, and accepting of the likely death of one or both of their PCs.
Of course, as a DM, I might not expect such a campaign to go very far, although I do believe an evil(ish) campaign could have potential with mature role players and a strong goal to bind a party together. That kind of thing is pretty hard to pull off though.
At the same time when it's okay in a group of good or neutral characters:
When the players of both the intended killer and intended victim have expressly agreed to it, or agreed that it is an acceptable thing to do.On the other hand, I don't allow evil characters in-game. Most of my regular players wouldn't want to play them, and I find the few times I've allowed it with newer players, it's often been used as an excuse to act sexist and racist and expect to get away with it.
(In that regard it's been useful to weed out people we don't want to hang around with anyway, though).An evil campaign has a tendency to romantizise horrible things, or sometimes even frame them as good, so I stay far away from that.
I want to offer my campaign as a case study in how an evil party can work.
This is a campaign I've been DMing for over five years; the party is now 19th level. The PCs are all evil, running the gamut from CE to LE. One of them is a largely amoral assassin who treats killing like a job (though he takes professional satisfaction in doing it well). Another is a ruthless warrior who takes pleasure in torturing people. Another is a cheerfully Chaotic Evil worshipper of Loki, who doesn't really concern himself with morality and will go along with almost anything as long as lols are involved.
There is little intra-party conflict, and none that has ever escalated to violence. The PCs are not linked by a single shared goal, nor by any rigid command hierarchy; they each have their own goals, some of them linked to each other; but more importantly: they are friends and comrades.
Why wouldn't they be? They've spent years adventuring together, helping each other achieve their goals, learning each other's ambitions and desires, saving each other's lives. At the beginning of their careers, they banded together out of necessity; now, when they are some of the most powerful people in the campaign world, they are each other's most critical allies. There is real trust between them, which took time to grow and develop (roleplayed excellently by their players, I might add).
And yet they're unquestionably evil. They have no qualms about killing innocents if it serves their purposes (though they never engaged in needless slaughter or arbitrary atrocities), nor about torture, kidnapping, blackmail, burglary, etc. On the other hand, they've helped save the world on several occasions (can't rule a destroyed world, right?). Some of their allies are Good-aligned (some of those allies know the party is evil, while others don't care)! What's more, the evil acts of the PCs are not romanticized or portrayed as anything but Evil. And roleplaying Evil has not resulted in the players acting like jerks (we're all friends IRL).
Evil can be VERY interesting to roleplay. The thing to remember is that many of the most interesting real-life historical figures have been, at best, flawed people, and some have been, by the standards of modern morality, definitely evil. But history is almost entirely lacking in real-life caricatures. Everyone is the hero of their own story.
YOU choose if you want to play Darth Vader-evil. It's also very possible to play Dexter-evil, or any other variant that doesn't kick every puppy she sees.
Honestly, evil characters feel much more real and believable when they have friends that they genuinely care about, and/or when they have morals, just bad morals.
Indeed.
Dying to a DM-played monster or NPC is one thing, dying to a PC controlled by your friend at the gaming table is a whole different thing. I've seen it cause fights. I've seen it break friendships. Sure, maybe the guy with the dead character was too overly invested in his character and let it get to him too much. That's practically a given. But some people play this as a "Role Playing" game rather than just a "Roll Playing" game, and for some that do, building a persona and identifying with that persona is much of the charm - for those players, having a friend trash all that work and effort and persona identification can be a very personal issue indeed.
Don't get me wrong, I enjoy making a character and giving him a rich backstory and fleshed out personality, and I tend to find the role playing aspects some of the most enjoyable and memorable parts of the game, I guess (for me anyway) it just seems like that characters story ending allows me to start another one that hopefully I like even more, and while luckily I don't tend to die from other PC's, a lot of the other players in my group do, and they don't let it get to them that much. Maybe my group is more casual about the game, or maybe they just don't invest the amount of time to a character as your group does, but luckily for us it has never gotten to the point of real life conflicts because of in game combat.
Makhno, you have a rare and precious thing there. I hope you know that.
For most every other Evil campaign (all of them I've seen and all of them my group of players has seen, and most of them I hear about online), there's always at least one or more players who think they've got to play George Lucas evil (that guy really single-handedly ruined the concept of evil for an entire generation, maybe two generations, of would-be roleplayers). Once that one guy starts it, that snowball avalanches downhill into a ruined campaign before you know it.
So appreciate your rare gift.
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There is little intra-party conflict, and none that has ever escalated to violence. The PCs are not linked by a single shared goal, nor by any rigid command hierarchy; they each have their own goals, some of them linked to each other; but more importantly: they are friends and comrades.
Why wouldn't they be? They've spent years adventuring together, helping each other achieve their goals, learning each other's ambitions and desires, saving each other's lives. At the beginning of their careers, they banded together out of necessity; now, when they are some of the most powerful people in the campaign world, they are each other's most critical allies. There is real trust between them, which took time to grow and develop (roleplayed excellently by their players, I might add).
This is excellent !!!
It remind me exactly of the Secret Six DC comic that followed the adventures of 6 villains allied in their opposition to the Injustice Society when it wanted absolute obedience from all super-villains.
The title is a textbook example of what an Evil party can be and how it can develop the kind of synergy and trust usually ascribed to Good parties (or here superheroes).
They could not succeed forever of course. But when they went out, they did it like gods.
Man, now I have a craving to reread that last issue.
At the same time when it's okay in a group of good or neutral characters:
When the players of both the intended killer and intended victim have expressly agreed to it, or agreed that it is an acceptable thing to do.On the other hand, I don't allow evil characters in-game. Most of my regular players wouldn't want to play them, and I find the few times I've allowed it with newer players, it's often been used as an excuse to act sexist and racist and expect to get away with it.
(In that regard it's been useful to weed out people we don't want to hang around with anyway, though).An evil campaign has a tendency to romantizise horrible things, or sometimes even frame them as good, so I stay far away from that.
Right, This has to be something both players have discussed and OKed. It can make for a great dramatic moment, but it should not be a surprise to the PLAYER whose PC is being ofed.
Makhno, you have a rare and precious thing there. I hope you know that.
For most every other Evil campaign (all of them I've seen and all of them my group of players has seen, and most of them I hear about online), there's always at least one or more players who think they've got to play George Lucas evil (that guy really single-handedly ruined the concept of evil for an entire generation, maybe two generations, of would-be roleplayers). Once that one guy starts it, that snowball avalanches downhill into a ruined campaign before you know it.
So appreciate your rare gift.
Yes. I think, reading some of the other responses in this thread, that I should tell my players how much I appreciate them more often.
I'm pretty much OK with PvP and killing other PCs as long as the players at the table are OK with playing in a campaign that won't prohibit that sort of thing. If even one person expresses reservations about not prohibiting PvP or shows that they can't handle it, the option is off the table.
....In an evil game that is.
In an evil game? I wouldn't really care, 'cause I wouldn't be there. Not my cup of tea.
As an observer, though, I wouldn't expect the PCs to get out of the starting box without a fatality.
....In an evil game that is.
PF, being a group game, typically necessitates characters willing to work in a group.
A smart player will realize that the act of PKing shows the other characters that his character doesn't play well with others, which basically flags him for PK if the group is trying to achieve an objective as a group.
That said, any time it was done within the rules, and in character, for in-game reasons, a mature gaming group who acknowledges they're in an evil campaign should be fine with PKing, and so should a mature GM.