How to play with evil characters:
Have a party with good characters who don't deal in absolutes or have a party of evil characters who don't deal in absolutes
Never allow party PVP(Stealing, hiding information that is essential to the campaign, or outright attacks)
You can have only 1 or the other when it comes to characters that MUST act on certain situations I.e a Paladin usually must pursue the good route and an Antipaladin MUST choose the not good route. If you make an evil character who is willing to compromise, that is already more party friendly than many chaotic or lawful ones.
An evil character who can compromise is one who doesn't NEED to pick the evil route every time or possibly ever in a party of mostly good or neutral characters. A player needs to be pretty convincing to play an evil character in a mix or mostly good aligned party. You have to sell people on the morally gray. Do it right and they might start looking to your opinion first.
I've played two evil characters in the recent past. One was a mixed alignment group(1 evil, 1 good, the rest varying neutrals). That character was in love with the good one and for the most part very compliant with her wishes. He typically always voted for whatever was the most expedient route(Morality losing to expedience) possible and prone to quiet violence when the good one was in danger or made a fool of. Kairos was Neutral Evil Fetchling Nomad Psion.
The other character was more of the lawful evil variety. Born and raised in Cheliax, she was a claw her way to the throne in whatever way possible type. That game the party's souls were indebted to a contract devil so we had that uniting us in purpose. We did some pretty awful things in this campaign. Separating yourself from your character is a big part of playing evil games and enjoying them.
I've played two games in the recent past with someone else playing an evil character. In one, I was a Lawful Good Cleric and we were pretty much stuck with each other. We swore an oath to keep the younger party members safe from whatever happens.
The other I played a mostly neutral character and butted heads with the evil one mostly since it was often not practical to take the evil route(In character, he just didn't want to do bad stuff). So convincing him to take a more practical route was pretty effective.
The very first character I created was back in 1985, right after I began playing. My DM urged me to roll up an Anti-Paladin to join in a party of mostly evil PCs for what some had termed his "Killer Dungeon". The only players ever to go through this semester-long game before had played good and neutral characters and he wanted to see how a group of evil characters, forced to work together for the goals of their deity, would do.
The one rule the players had was that their characters could not kill another person's evil PC, no matter which of the evil alignments they had. The deity they served, Set, had mandated this and the punishment for disobedience was to have your character killed and your sheet torn up. Characters of evil alignments that did not worship Set were fair game as were players whose characters were of good or neutral alignments. They were told from the outset of the game they would face dangers that didn't all come from the DM's plans and that there was no whining allowed if an Anti-Paladin decided it was in his and Set's interests to kill their characters.
I suppose the argument could be made that they weren't "allowed" to be evil, but even though they were not allowed to kill a fellow Sethian (Setite?) that didn't mean they weren't fair game to be robbed, attacked, or even set up to be killed by someone else (which almost happened to my character). And woe betide any good characters who tried to interfere with the completion of this homebrew module my friend had made. Terrible deeds were done in Set's name.
The result was my character and those of two others were the only ones who ever survived from the beginning to the end of that module. I don't think it was from teamwork because there wasn't very much of that at all really, but tenacity and desire to be Set's Most Favored by the end. My character was the one who managed to achieve that goal. And once the campaign was completed the restraint against killing each other was removed so everyone had to stay on their toes. Always.
When I began DMing/GMing, I allowed evil characters in parties of good and neutral PCs but they were all cautioned that I would not interfere with the way they interacted together. If the player of the evil PC was the kind who thought it was cool to steal from other players or betray them or somesuch, the other players were free to turn on him. They were all aware of the possible consequences of playing in a group where good and evil were present.
I think there has to be a certain level of emotional maturity to effectively play evil characters. I've seen so many players who thought their characters' only reason for being there was to disrupt the game as much as possible and playing an evil alignment was always their excuse to do that. When they learned that they faced consequences from their fellow players or various agents of the law or bounty hunters they either stopped playing evils or learned a lesson from it for playing them in the future.
Not sure if anything I said here was helpful or even made sense. I'm operating on caffeine and pain meds at the moment so I make no guarantees...LOL.
Make any adventure work simply by reversing the roles... take Kingmaker for example, because I am familiar with it... your party is a team of Stag Lord bandits...
Embrace the Evil!
The Aasimar and the Dhampir have a nice underlying dialogue at my current table... one is a Monk/Inquisitor archer, the other a Slayer Assassin who will peel the skin off your hands to get the "correct" answers from you.
"Teamwork" sometimes requires turning a blind eye...
"You pull guard, Angel, I have some questions to ask..."
I've run games where the good guys weren't that good (jaded knights questioning their corrupt lord's rule) and the bad guys weren't that bad (grizzled highywaymen and n'er-do-wells), along with some I'm-in-it-for-the-money neutral characters. That worked just fine.
I've also run a few games where the whole party was a horrifically vile lot. Specific, Jack-o'-the-Lantern and his Carnival of Souls. It was interesting and sort of liberating to be the guys on the other side, I think. And when the Sacred Order of the Violet Grail visited upon them a roaring vengeance and sent the unquiet dead and the daemons screaming back to the black abyss from whence they had come...it was cathartic. One of the players was like "my character died...but he needed killing."
Comfort levels and all that are absolutely vital to these sorts of things, but I don't think playing a puppy-eating, baby-kicking monster means you condone those activities any more than when the GM portrays NPC's like that. As long as no one at the table is being forced into uncomfortable situations and you recognize that talking about such a game with others will have mixed results at best (but then, that's anything with dark/mature/explicit content. "Game of Thrones", anyone?), I think you're in the clear.
While it’s true that a good way to help running a successful campaign is to have a certain theme to it, to help set a common goal, I’d argue that it’s kinda necessary for all campaign to be successful. Adventurers needs to have reasons to work together, no matter their alignment.
I think the reasons we think that evil characters need some special treatment or restrictions stems from the fact that when we think evil we think about psychopathic killers, kleptomaniac thief that can’t stop themselves from stealing from their allies, or some of the classic examples of the paragon of evil (antipaladins and really motivated evil cleric). While it’s true that it would be harder to deal with such characters, I don’t think it stands for all evil archetypes.
Some example of these archetypes could be: a pessimistic nihilist without any moral, a slimy conartist, a cold blooded killer, a very selfish individual (to the detriments of other), a mercenary without quandaries.
I think the real defining traits of Evil characters, is that they understand, to some extend, what morals is, but they don’t either don’t care, or places values in another form of moral (such as honor or family for LE characters), but don’t care much for the average people. It also means they are willing to use some vile tactics to get to their goal. That does not mean they can’t have any associates, friends or even loved ones.
While it is true that Evil characters can be harder to manage and run a greater risk of clashing with the party goal or leading to pvp. That being said, the same can be said about some Lawful archetypes or any chaotic archetypes. Even good character can clash with the party if they deem certain actions goes against their morals. Any character concept can be disruptive to the party no matter the alignment if they clash with the party goals. Ever had a non-violence zealot in one of your group that tries to enforce peaceful resolutions to every conflict? That’s a good example of a character with a good alignment that can be disruptive.
As with any characters, I think there’s some requirements for them to be successful:
-Characters need to have reasons for them to be interested in the plot.
-Characters need to have reasons to stick with the party, be it friendship or shared interest.
-Characters need to be willing to work with the party and consider taking action against them as a last resort. (To strongly discourage pvp, if it's even allowed.)
These are all things that a good session 0 can take care of, no matter the character alignment.
While I generally prefer to play good or neutral character, I have played some Lawful evil characters with great success. I was playing an LE Dhamphyr that got send by her vampire father on adventuring so she could acquire wealth and fortune to the family. She was kind of a b~#%%, very haughty and had no moral quandaries with using others lives to advance her goal, but she had honor and valued her comrade for their skills and talents. She would have never thoughts about betraying them, and when forced to choose morals over efficiency she would complain and call the decision stupid, but still go with her party, cause what else could she do? Force them? Though luck.
Well that’s my thoughts about evil characters hopes this can helps! :)
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Lawful evil characters can work great in a party of mixed alignment.
They can plan long term, either growing themselves and gaining power while doing nothing overtly evil in the sort term. They might even be able to get away with setting up some things that will lead to long term evil while adventuring with the party, but nothing that would be obvious an overt.
Perhaps while traveling on a day off they start setting up a system of contacts for their future activities.
Honestly, lawful evil can get away with not appearing evil because it can further their goals down the line.
I'm reminded of a magic object (I forget what it's called) that has a Infernal Duke trapped inside. It helps the object's bearer accomplish great deeds and found a city/nation. When the bearer reaches the peak of power and their deeds are being celebrated, it's true purpose activates and it teleports the whole city to Hell and releases the Infernal Duke.
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Way of the Wicked, best evil campaign. The author discusses the problems with evil characters in the first book.
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Evil doesn't mean either stupid or psychopathic monster. Puppy kicking and orphanage burning contests are in the same realm of juvenile as PvP and undermining your own party.
Create an interesting character who fits the theme and setting of the adventure. A group of four Asmodeans aren't going to be constantly undermining each other, nor would four cultists of Baphomet.
Evil is often compared to frothing, childish grossout lunacy - but you can make just as sophisticated and sympathetic of an evil character as good, chaotic or lawful.
Just build a necromancer. Evil by default, literally could be the kindest and most genuinely helpful person on the planet... but apparently raising the dead makes you a "bad" guy. I can live that, though. I can always make my own friends...
The biggest problem is when you're RPing fully realized and nuanced evil characters in a full party of the same it is *really* difficult to keep the party on track.
Since "I do this for the greater glory of EVIL" is never going to work long term, but evil frameworks like "I'm purely in it for myself" or "I don't care how many faces I need to step on to do the thing that needs doing" tend to work best in mixed parties. Where the LE character suggesting "let's burn the building down, then our targets will either die or come out" is at least going to get pushback.
Our Hell's Vengeance game imploded spectacularly when the party collectively realized that the shared motivation of the group was essentially "we hate the people we're working for more than the people we're working against" and the party decided that the best thing to do was to play along and betray Thrune in a manner that does as much damage as possible while being able to get away with it. We haven't had any adventures in Cheliax since.
Our Hell's Vengeance game imploded spectacularly when the party collectively realized that the shared motivation of the group was essentially "we hate the people we're working for more than the people we're working against" and the party decided that the best thing to do was to play along and betray Thrune in a manner that does as much damage as possible while being able to get away with it.
Having to work for Thrune might be the key issue for many people with the AP, as far as I remember reading about it.
In Paizo's defense, the player guide has a clarification about it right in the second paragraph:
This Adventure Path is specifically designed for evil player characters, and works best with characters eager, or at least willing, to work for House Thrune and the lawful government of Cheliax
But maybe it was a flawed premise to begin with. Players going for evil characters appearantly expect a higher degree of freedom, not a lesser.
Hell's Vengeance fails because it should be the AP in which you can play the LN Chelish patriot who wants what's best for their country, has some nationalistic blinders, but nonetheless has lines they won't cross. But the pitch is "the evil AP" so it ends up that your CE maniac is better suited to it.
I mean, the adventure path is about a pretty specific brand of evil.
I played through it as a Tyrant Antipaladin who worshiped Asmodeus. Honestly, it was probably the campaign my group enjoyed the most because we could be unabashedly awful and as long as it didn't hurt House Thrune, Asmodeus, or Cheliax (too noticeably) we got pats on the back for being so despicable.
Hell's Vengeance fails because it should be the AP in which you can play the LN Chelish patriot who wants what's best for their country, has some nationalistic blinders, but nonetheless has lines they won't cross. But the pitch is "the evil AP" so it ends up that your CE maniac is better suited to it.
I disagree, it's best suited for Lawful Evil parties, particularly ones who have lines not to cross are Asmodeus, House Thrune, and Cheliax.
A lawful neutral patriot in Cheliax will quickly come to realize that Cheliax is evil for serious reasons, and be forced to confront it. They will either join the evil side, ignore it (not personally participating in the extra evil, but not avoiding state mandated evil, probably becoming evil long term) or fight against it.
In my mind, there's not really middle ground to stay neutral.
And the AP presumes you're going the evil route.
That was absolutely beautiful, Mark!
Way of the Wicked, best evil campaign. The author discusses the problems with evil characters in the first book.
Seconded.
That adventure path does a great job of getting evil characters to cooperate without losing their sense of evilness. My only gripe was around book 3 or 4 (I can’t remember which) where the PCs are expected to agree to what looks, on the surface, like a suicide mission when they are realistically powerful enough to refuse. My character was a religious zealot so didn’t hesitate to take on the task but the other players had to act out of character (in my opinion) in order to go along with it.
Without giving spoilers book 2 of that series was my favourite and a real stand out, but really all the books were top quality.
I guess my biggest problem with evil characters/campaigns is that, excepting "certain mechanics are only available to characters of certain alignments" I just don't see anything fun about inhabiting an evil person. Like I get my share of "playing villains" in when I GM, and I can make these folks as awful as they need to be because they're essentially guaranteed to lose in the end.
But as a PC, and even though I've played some evil characters that other people were impressed with my portrayal of, I just don't see anything entertaining about "pretending to be an awful person" when I don't see their comeuppance inevitable.
Same, I prefer playing either the good guy or the anti hero. It was interesting to play a thoroughly evil character once, but I doubt I will want to do it again.
If our GM runs an evil campaign in the future I will probably play an anti hero who goes off the rails from time to time rather than a classic villain with no redeeming features.