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Ok, so the players in my group were tasked with retrieving this self-aware construct (Think Legion from Mass Effect in a sense) for an engineering guild. The construct asked to be let go when captured, saying that they (the guild) wanted it to be something it wasn't (a mechanical replacement for the boss' dead daughter). They returned it anyway.
Would it be too dickish to have the PCs try to extract the golem from the facility and find it torn in two, oil oozing from its eyes and moth, whimpering things like "...pleas stop, I promise I'll be good...I promise I'll behave..." In a defeated, broken tone? I kinda want to hammer home that their greed and actions can have unforseen consiquences without really taking it out on the players themselves.
Also, the players seem to be taking a "kill and steal from everyone" mentality. Would ot be inappropriate to have a future patron to hit'em with a Geas to keep them from murdering innocent people?
Seriously, the cleric kidnapped, experemented on then killed and dissected A KID because he was heckling him. I see a manhunt coming his way in the near future.
The Cleric and the Fighter are Lawful Evil, the Sorcerer is Chaotic Neutral, the Ranger is...Neutral Good? and the Magus is either Neutral Good or Lawful Neutral.
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Well, the Evil people are playing in-character...how do you feel about running an Evil game?
Because,if you're cool with it, I'd ding the Good Aligned peoples' Alignments in that direction and just go with it. Evil games can be a real blast, actually. Mahunts, fighting Celestials, dealing with major Good groups after you, etc. Plus Metallic Dragons of all sorts.
I you aren't cool with it...then you can start using karma and such...but I'd probably go with the first solution if it were me.
Would it be too dickish to have the PCs try to extract the golem from the facility and find it torn in two, oil oozing from its eyes and moth, whimpering things like "...pleas stop, I promise I'll be good...I promise I'll behave..." In a defeated, broken tone? I kinda want to hammer home that their greed and actions can have unforseen consiquences without really taking it out on the players themselves.
I like that!
Also, the players seem to be taking a "kill and steal from everyone" mentality. Would ot be inappropriate to have a future patron to hit'em with a Geas to keep them from murdering innocent people?Seriously, the cleric kidnapped, experemented on then killed and dissected A KID because he was heckling him. I see a manhunt coming his way in the near future.
The Cleric and the Fighter are Lawful Evil, the Sorcerer is Chaotic Neutral, the Ranger is...Neutral Good? and the Magus is either Neutral Good or Lawful Neutral.
are their actions in agreement with the law or do they forget this part of their alignment? What the good PCs say? There should be a mayor conflict in the group.
PS: Talk to your players!
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Well, the Evil people are playing in-character...how do you feel about running an Evil game?
Because,if you're cool with it, I'd ding the Good Aligned peoples' Alignments in that direction and just go with it. Evil games can be a real blast, actually. Mahunts, fighting Celestials, dealing with major Good groups after you, etc. Plus Metallic Dragons of all sorts.
I you aren't cool with it...then you can start using karma and such...but I'd probably go with the first solution if it were me.
Well if I had planned for an evil game, that would be one thing. But I opted to try to run a good/neutral game where the players try to keep an otherworldy entity (Denizen of Leng Summoner 2) from ripping open the fabric of the world, paving the way for a fiendish incursion the likes of which have rarely been seen outside of the Blood War.
I just really don't know how to deal with evil characters at all. This is only the second campaign I've run and the first one everyone decided NOT to be evil. This one just kinda seems like a "Let's screw with the GM" kinda thing.
Also, semi-unrelated, they keep pestering me about Kobolds and Goblins when I've told'em several times that in the homebrew world the campaign takes place in, there are no Kobolds or Goblins (weird, I know, but there are reasons that I've not revealed to the players). I'm honestly either considering giving in and being all "FINE! There are Goblins! There are Kobolds! Are you ****ing happy?!" or going the opposite with "Ok, you lose 100g every time you ask about friggin' Goblins or Kobolds. We've been over this enough that it's getting stupid".
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Also, the players seem to be taking a "kill and steal from everyone" mentality. Would ot be inappropriate to have a future patron to hit'em with a Geas to keep them from murdering innocent people?Seriously, the cleric kidnapped, experemented on then killed and dissected A KID because he was heckling him. I see a manhunt coming his way in the near future.
The Cleric and the Fighter are Lawful Evil, the Sorcerer is Chaotic Neutral, the Ranger is...Neutral Good? and the Magus is either Neutral Good or Lawful Neutral.
are their actions in agreement with the law or do they forget this part of their alignment? What the good PCs say? There should be a mayor conflict in the group.
PS: Talk to your players!
Well this past game was just with the Fighter, Magus and Cleric. The evil guys seemed to run things, and the Cleric seemed to try and justify his actions in that he has a moral code he follows as opposed to an adherence and abuse of the law for his own gain. Hopefully next session will go better, though I doubt it, as the Ranger is on orders and the Sorcerer has work stuff.
You need to get your players to come to some kind of agreement. Do they want a good-ish group, where the evil characters defer to the opinions of the non-evil characters? An evil group, where the non-evil characters are corrupted by the influence of the evil characters? Or inter-group conflict which may lead to the PCs killing each other?
You can probably adapt the campaign to whatever they want. If your plot involves saving the world from an extra-planar invasion, have an NPC ruler offer your PCs 100,000gp for doing so. Even an evil character can get behind that. (If the campaign ends when the evil plot is thwarted, you can offer them whatever they want without it unbalancing things.)
The sad golem thing would be an interesting test. There's a good chance they won't care at all.
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The sad golem thing would be an interesting test. There's a good chance they won't care at all.
Especially if they're already murdering children.
You might just want to tell the players that you're unhappy with how the campaign is going with evil characters and it's making it unfun for you to run. You're a player too, after all.
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BURN AND DESTROY THE GUILD! THEY DARE TO BRING GOOD INTO THE WORLD. THE GOLEM HAST SPOKEN TWOULD BE GOOD. BURN THE GUILD!
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The sad golem thing would be an interesting test. There's a good chance they won't care at all.Especially if they're already murdering children.
You might just want to tell the players that you're unhappy with how the campaign is going with evil characters and it's making it unfun for you to run. You're a player too, after all.
Well for the record, the Cleric killed the kid. If anything, he'll be the first to die. I'm trying to be nice to the players, giving them CR appropriate fights and fairly easy missions for gold.
So if they decide to keep on the annoyingly evil path, then I suppose I'll see about bringing in a squad of three Whip Magi to start doing Shocking Grasp-True Striking called shots. Throw things at them intended to outright kill them instead of provide a bit of a challenge.
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If they're behaving in a way you aren't comfortable GMing then this is an OOC problem, not an IC one, and should be handled by OOC solutions, like talking to them, not IC ones like sending tougher foes against them.
Period.
Trying to correct OOC problems IC is a mistake common to new players and GMs alike (I've certainly done it a time or two), but it's nevertheless precisely that: a mistake.
Talk to them, maybe discuss how their behavior is making you not enjoy GMing...and might lead to you not doing that any more.
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If they're behaving in a way you aren't comfortable GMing then this is an OOC problem, not an IC one, and should be handled by OOC solutions, like talking to them, not IC ones like sending tougher foes against them.
Period.
Trying to correct OOC problems IC is a mistake common to new players and GMs alike (I've certainly done it a time or two), but it's nevertheless precisely that: a mistake.
Talk to them, maybe discuss how their behavior is making you not enjoy GMing...and might lead to you not doing that any more.
*Nods* That's probably for the best...
I'll see two of the players later today, so I'll talk to them then. I think one of the issues is that I'm a relatively inexperienced DM running a game for people that have FAR more experience than I do. Kinda feels like running a 3.5 game and a player deciding to pull a Wight-pocalypse for the shenanigans of it.
Just Say No.
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Why do some players feel that all evil PCs have no friends, no awareness of repercussion, no need for love, and no common sense?
This is why most evil PCs don't fly with DMs.
I like my evil PCs to have an effect on people that makes them say "wait, why would you do that? Oh yeah, you're evil. Dang, I forgot. Man, that is evil."
Most evil doesn't like to spread that fact around, and often don't consider themselves evil.
Only that on Golarion evil is a thing with a major "E" and there are definitely a lot of people who openly consider themselves to be following an evil philosophy.
Why do some players feel that all evil PCs have no friends, no awareness of repercussion, no need for love, and no common sense?
There's a certain thrill in being chaotic stupid or such. That thrill in my experience usually burns out pretty quickly, though some players tend to do it for longer times than others. Imo, its much more fun to play evil in a way that's subtle, and its far easier to run when evil isn't wantonly blowing things up or torturing people just because. Sadly, in my experience many players who play evil think its all about being openly evil and kicking puppies, which is why there's some difficulty in running it and many people just say no.
Talk with your players. If they don't want to run that type of campaign for that kind of game, there's a problem. Its not that they're evil, its how they're acting. I would advice against taking OOC problems out in the game, or punishing the players in game.
Only that on Golarion evil is a thing with a major "E" and there are definitely a lot of people who openly consider themselves to be following an evil philosophy.
Come join the Evil church of Evil where we worship Evil while doing Evil while eating Evil cookies? Emphasis on the Evil.
I don't know if that's how Golarion setting works, but that sounds sort of silly.
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You could have the construct pull an "Iron Man" (not the comic, the Black Sabbath song), slaughter the guild, lots more people, then come after them, killing its way through any of their allies, contacts, etc until it catches up. In a way, that would sort of tie in to the latest Iron Man movie, where he creates his own demons.
My advice would be DO NOT try to run an evil game if you are not very experienced as a GM. More importantly, if your players are not mature and experienced, an evil game tends to threaten the fabric of the unspoken convenant not to kill each other, etc. This is not to say it cannot be done, because it can. It just may cause you a bit of trouble before you work it all out.
Come join the Evil church of Evil where we worship Evil while doing Evil while eating Evil cookies? Emphasis on the Evil.
I don't know if that's how Golarion setting works, but that sounds sort of silly.
So, how do you explain followers of Norgorber, Lamashtu, Urgathoa, Zun-Kuthon and Asmodeus? And the other ones I forgot. Those are explicitly, by their dogma, evil faiths.
So, how do you explain followers of Norgorber, Lamashtu, Urgathoa, Zun-Kuthon and Asmodeus? And the other ones I forgot. Those are explicitly, by their dogma, evil faiths.Come join the Evil church of Evil where we worship Evil while doing Evil while eating Evil cookies? Emphasis on the Evil.
I don't know if that's how Golarion setting works, but that sounds sort of silly.
They do have interest and aspects beyond Evil with a capital E.
Norgorber has knowledge and secrets, Urgathoa has life after death, Zun Kuthon has sado-masochism, Groetus can give visions of what is and will be, Lamashtu is a mother and the creator of several racse and a very powerful demon lord who ascended to godhood, Asmodeus is lawful and god of contracts and loopholes, Cyth V'sug will bring all together in a weird fungus hivemind kinda' way, Jezelda is a matron of were-wolves, Szuriel is destruction and warfare, Pazuzu will grant your wishes, Achaekek is an assassin who slays dieties and worshipped by those who wish to emulate him and his practices, and that list goes on and on. They have aspects about them that would draw people in, and the backstory of a character could easily involve indoctrination or being born into a culture, or having a promise/goal that one of these deities could fulfill.
I never said that they every single follower of them is evil, nor did I dispute that those gods have other aspects than being a particular flavor of evil.
BUT there is real evil on Golarion and some ( and I personally would say that even most ) of those worshippers fully embrace the evil their god propagates. They acknowledge that their god is evil, they willingly and happily promote evil and they don't see themselves as being good.
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In concerns to ur story line evil characters can and will rise against other evils if that evil is threatening them in any way or is just in there way. The last game i played i was evil teamed with a nearly all good party. I did my evil acts, in secret with out party character's knowledge, and got along fine with the party. The reason i did not murder them all in there sleep, other than them being mobile shields to exsprb the damage i would have taken, was because we all had the same goal of stopping a devil from rising in power and entering the mortal plane to do its evil thing. My reasons were diferent from the party, being i enjoy the world as is because its like 6 million happy meals i can enjoy over time, but the fact still remained that we all had the same end goal in mind. I will state though that if your players are not smart enough to pull off evil, which you will be able to discern in a matter of 1-3 sessions, then they should not play evil characters. By the way an act of evil that i got away with was i fed the party meat from the things we killed and/or what i killed in secret (mostly player races like humans XD) with out them being the wiser, DM obviously in on it btw.
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Well apparently the problem was that I wasn't giving the players any obvious, overt incentive to follow the plot.
Though honestly I feel that it's pretty stupid to outright say that the ruler of a nation will hire them on as a royally sanctioned adventuring party should they go investigate a weird explosion+implosion that creates a very VERY out of place planar rift. It's all "NOPE WE'RE SKIPPIN' TOWN REGARDLESS OF WHAT WORLD ENDING ENTITY JUST BULLDOZED ITS WAY INTO OUR WORLD" (Seriously, it's only a CR11 that they won't be fighting until they're like level 10). It's like they're intentionally ignoring any plot hooks I dangle in front of them to mess with me. And their argument is that it's a carrot and a stick thing and that they're not seeing the carrot despite them ignoring the carrots I'm dangling in front of them.
Seriously, it's like I have to hold their hand instead of the PCs being naturally inquisitive. So now I'm working on a ruin for them to explore and find information about the Queen which I would put cash money on them ignoring in favor of the vast amounts of gold and magic items that I'm likely gonna stock the place with. And the only reason I'm gonna stock the place with such loot at all is because the players are complaining about a lack of gear and loot because they won't follow the fething plot and want to go off and conduct illegal activities and get in trouble with the authorities. Maybe if they bit at a plot hook they'd find those riches and magic items they so sought instead of forcing me to write up a premature dungeon and stat up a Revenant Assassin of the farmer they killed (The father (Who a PC shanked in a jail cell) of the dead kid the Cleric killed) to hunt them down and murder each of them one by one.
Though some good came from last session. I now have it in my head to stop any and all OOC -> IC shenanigans, even if I have to pull Rule 0 on them.
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So a NG Ranger, Neutral Good being effectively the Hero alignment that is not as concerned with laws or chaos as it is with the greater good, is comfortably palling around with two LE characters?
If some of the party is actually evil by alignment they must be attracting Paladins who would love to smite some evil lawbreakers mucking about in their city. After all its what most of the premade adventures focus on; taking out some evil person or group.
Your PCs are an evil force in your game world -- and it should be responding accordingly: wanted posters start going up, then squads of paladin knights are dispatched (with arcane backup), etc. Alternatively, minions of Hell start paying them "recruiting" visits.
Introduce them to consequences.
I agree with Sir Thugsalot.
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So a NG Ranger, Neutral Good being effectively the Hero alignment that is not as concerned with laws or chaos as it is with the greater good, is comfortably palling around with two LE characters?
If some of the party is actually evil by alignment they must be attracting Paladins who would love to smite some evil lawbreakers mucking about in their city. After all its what most of the premade adventures focus on; taking out some evil person or group.
I agree with Sir Thugsalot.Your PCs are an evil force in your game world -- and it should be responding accordingly: wanted posters start going up, then squads of paladin knights are dispatched (with arcane backup), etc. Alternatively, minions of Hell start paying them "recruiting" visits.
Introduce them to consequences.
Well actually, the Ranger and Magus are both Lawful Neutral, the Sorcerer is Chaotic Neutral, and the Cleric and Fighter are both Lawful Evil.
Their behaviour has been be rather Evil so far.
You can shift their alignment if they keep doing stuff like that.
Also, I third what Thugsalot said. Let them feel the consequences of their actions.
Well apparently the problem was that I wasn't giving the players any obvious, overt incentive to follow the plot.
Though honestly I feel that it's pretty stupid to outright say that the ruler of a nation will hire them on as a royally sanctioned adventuring party should they go investigate a weird explosion+implosion that creates a very VERY out of place planar rift. It's all "NOPE WE'RE SKIPPIN' TOWN REGARDLESS OF WHAT WORLD ENDING ENTITY JUST BULLDOZED ITS WAY INTO OUR WORLD" (Seriously, it's only a CR11 that they won't be fighting until they're like level 10). It's like they're intentionally ignoring any plot hooks I dangle in front of them to mess with me. And their argument is that it's a carrot and a stick thing and that they're not seeing the carrot despite them ignoring the carrots I'm dangling in front of them.
Seriously, it's like I have to hold their hand instead of the PCs being naturally inquisitive. So now I'm working on a ruin for them to explore and find information about the Queen which I would put cash money on them ignoring in favor of the vast amounts of gold and magic items that I'm likely gonna stock the place with. And the only reason I'm gonna stock the place with such loot at all is because the players are complaining about a lack of gear and loot because they won't follow the fething plot and want to go off and conduct illegal activities and get in trouble with the authorities. Maybe if they bit at a plot hook they'd find those riches and magic items they so sought instead of forcing me to write up a premature dungeon and stat up a Revenant Assassin of the farmer they killed (The father (Who a PC shanked in a jail cell) of the dead kid the Cleric killed) to hunt them down and murder each of them one by one.
Though some good came from last session. I now have it in my head to stop any and all OOC -> IC shenanigans, even if I have to pull Rule 0 on them.
#1 (and this is paraphrased from one of my other posts somewhere)
Sit down with them as a group and burn a whole game session determining what the CHARACTERS want to achieve with their lives. GMing to an evil group is no different to GMing to a good group. The motivations for doing things might be different, but ultimately it's "what makes these char tick and what will be a really cool plot arc that involves it". "Save the world" arcs are more than viable for an evil group, but need to be presented vastly differently to them (eg. it's where you keep your stuff). If you have to fight off a horde of Leng denizens to get your coffee of a morning, good or evil, you want those suckers out of your Starbucks. The only thing that makes it marginally more complex is that you can't rely on cookie cutter tropes like 'The princess is trapped in a tower by an evil sorcerer' and expect them to jump to the rescue. What you need to remember is that these are not characters who will risk life and limb for someone for no reason other than it's "The right thing to do."You might have to add 'and she'd be ever so greatful... <wink>' before that happens.
#2
Looking at the above post, it sounds more like you and they don't want to play the same game, or at least have different expectations out of what they are going to do. It happens. I turned up to a Shadowrun game once that literally everyone in the party looked at the GM and his mission he was offering and unanimously said "Why would we want to accept that? It's against what a number of us believe in. Denied. Sod off." That legitimately came from left field from the GM (though no-one has quite worked out HOW he missed it). And this comes back to point 1 of understanding what the players (and characters) are expecting out of the game. If they want to make a criminal underworld then they're probably going to assume that he pallys will deal with that rift thing.... After all.... it's what (good) adventurers do. Work out what you were all expecting and then come to a happy medium or kill the game. You trying to cram "World spanning planar invasion" down their throats while they keep saying "Continent spanning thieves guild" ... look.... the two CAN work together, but there's a lot of work to get from default planar invasion (ESPECIALLY if your assuming they'll investigate it out of the goodness of their hearts) to that a viable plot that involves the criminal underground for a legitimately evil group.
1. Talk to your players. This will fix 90% of the issues in most games
2. If you dont want to run an evil campaign then make a simple rule "Evil PCs are not allowed in my game. Any character that drifts into an evil alignment becomes an NPC under my control and you will need to re roll a new character."
3. If you don't mind Evil PC's then you will need to make sure that the group as a whole is ok with it. I would also ban Chaotic Evil period. Even in an Evil campaign.
So in your case.
Do step 1. Install Step 2. Allow your evil players to re roll... or talk with them and come up with a In game event that causes them to have a life changing event that makes them rethink their lives and change alignments to something compatible with your campaign.
If the players insist on ignoring the world-ending threat, have the world-ending threat end the world. Actions have consequences.
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If the players insist on ignoring the world-ending threat, have the world-ending threat end the world. Actions have consequences.
That's the general plan. They'll wake up one day and be all "Dude, why is there a massive Evil Outsider incursion going on?" and I'll respond with "Well you guys had plenty of time to stop it. Why didn't you? Oh, and roll initiative as a squad of five devils burst through the door."
So I'm seriously considering scrapping this planar rifts plot and just let the players dictate what happens. Probably easier than trying to retool the whole campaign to appeal to a bunch of greedy, excessively violent and selfish PCs.
You could view this as an opportunity. You could shift the focus of the game the characters are involved in more in line with what they want to play. Shift the plot into the background. Have things they are doing get interrupted occasionally with plot related things. If enough of their plans get interrupted, they may decide to take care of the irritation themselves and do something about it.
Why not continue with the plotline about the evil outsider incursion, but rather than make it an all-of-a-sudden thing, drop the players some overt hints about it.
If they were good-aligned, allowing them to discover the plotted incursion may be enough to get them to want to stop it. Since they're evil though, make it personal. Maybe they cross paths with someone who wants to hire them to help make the incursion possible. Perhaps one of the PCs has something special about them which makes them a target for this plot (something like an ancient infernal bloodline, which makes them a kidnapping/sacrificial target, or one of the PCs might hail from a noble family and agents of the incursion-plot seek to kidnap that PC to force a ransom from his/her family and in so doing attack the party). You could have the PCs attacked by some sorcerer/wizard summoned demons or devils (who happen to be scouting an area for something important) - maybe they'd drop hints of the incursion, shouting that their deaths on this plane mean nothing and that during the upcoming incursion the dying demon/devil will seek revenge.
