The DMPC is the hero. He and his party of adventurers are recurring foes.

Group masturbate. It's healthy.

>>10079802
IMO thats the best way to run it. That way all the work on creating the universe isn't entirely on you, and you can adjust to their playstyle, needs etc and scale the opposition to be a good challenge while letting them be a bunch of murderous thieving pricks.

>>10079833
Which, of course, is essentially what a 'villain' game is to begin with. A circlejerk with the DM as the pivotman.

>>10079854

>Which, of course, is essentially what any game is to begin with. A circlejerk with the DM as the pivotman.

fix'd that for you

>>10079824
I was thinking of doing something like that. Maybe introduce about three or four adventuring parties over time that come about to thwart the player characters, and they can take advantage of these groups as they will. (Of course, if the groups realize what is going on if the players decide to use them against one another, they could risk facing a badass teamup)
>>10079833
Every session is group masturbation.

What do you guys think about starting at a higher level? One of my friends wants the campaign to begin at maybe level 11 so they can start as kind of big time villains, but I like the idea of having to play extremely cautious, fledgling villains that have decided to be evil from the very start.

>>10079840

"So I take over Planet X, right?"
"Right."
"Great. Alright, I start gathering an army and look for a guy who doesn't wanna join."
"OH please, don't hurt me, I have a family and don't want to fight in..."
"I KILL HIM!!!!!! No wait...WAIT...I mind control him and rape his wife! YEAH!"
"Okay. You rape his wife."
"Alright, now lets look for Planet Y. Man this game is great, I'm EVIL and raping people's wives and shit!"

You want to know?

Make them have real fucking characters with real motivations beyond "I want a harem of elves slaves and a goblin army"

Evil games can be fine if the characters are characters with twisted personalities. Evil games are shit when the characters exist entirely for 'lol evil'. so it's up to you, Anon.

If you're poisoning children and stealing and burning and all this shit because you can, you're not being evil.

>>10079886
>extremely cautious, fledgling villains that have decided to be evil from the very start.
The thing is, my immediate response to be a low-level person with plans of villainy is GET MORE POWER. More importantly, GET MORE POWER WITHOUT SEEMING SUSPICIOUS. This translates to GO ON GENERIC ADVENTURES. A low-level villain game is less of a Villain game and more of an "evil party" game.

>>10079952
>you're not being evil.
The fantasy equivalent of a /b/tard isn't evil?

>>10079928

"So I break in to Castle X, right?"
"Right."
"Great. Alright, I start beating up the evil army and look for a guy who looks like he's in charge."
"OH please, don't hurt me, I am utterly defeated and do not wish to die..."
"I KILL HIM!!!!!! No wait...WAIT...I cut his head off with a one liner about the glory of my god! YEAH!"
"Okay. You say something witty about pelor."
"Alright, now lets look for Castle Y. Man this game is great, I'm GOOD and smiting evildoers and shit!"

Here's an idea a friend of mine came up with:

All the superheros in the world are called upon to fight an alien invasion. Usually they'd win, right? Well, they do, but only with the help of a second alien race. They then gather the superheros all in one place to celebrate their victory and honor their dead- and then the second alien race, having hired the first race to attack just to stage this whole thing to determine the superheros' weaknesses, proceeds to exterminate all the surviving superheros and conquer the Earth.

Only the supervillains are left to defend the Earth against alien occupation- after all, it's THEIR Earth to conquer/destroy/hold for ransom, isn't it? They can't let some uppity aliens do it first!

TL;DR Villains fight to save the earth for their own ends because the heros done got themselves killed.

>>10079974
Well. The other issue is that a lot of people in villian games have decided all their villians powers since level 1, and are frustrated because they can't do all the REALLY EVIL IMPORTANT THINGS THEY NEED TO DO.

So you're constantly running into players who think they should be able to mind control, fly, have a horde of skeletons, and blind anyone at Level 2, and since they can't do all that, they're constantly looking for ways to do all that rather than any sort of character development.

Basically what everyone has been saying. STRESS CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT over MECHANICAL DEVELOPMENT or your villian game will end up as another block of

LE Troll Assassin - Rapes every child in every town we go too
CE Wizard: Three sucubus wives who he uses to torture paladins
NE Fighter: Dunno about this guy. Seemed interested at first, a roleplayer who doesn't seem to care. Started a bit fluff heavy
CE Cleric: Worships chaos gods and tries to destroy everything.

Last week we ran into an orphanage and burned it to the ground because we're evil.

>>10080010
True, but evil games tend to have it happen a lot more, because players aren't interested in evil characters, just doing evil things until they get bored.

>>10080010
Awww, is that butthurt I sense there? Am I offending your stylistic sense of your own self-importance?

Too fucking bad.

Villain games should start as criminal games. "I'm a magical thief/sneaky assassin/thug" and then they do shit and eventually develop into villains. "Hero" games don't start with paragons of justice and goodness, they start as little dinky "rogue/warrior/cleric" just looking to get some coins and hopefully not get covered in kobolds.

I remember a fantasy webcomic where all the characters were helping one guy on some evil quest but they were all planning on stabbing him in the back once they were done.
Anyone know what I'm talking about?

>/tg/, how does one run a campaign where the player characters are the villains?

Good has triumphed, evil is banished from the realm, everyone lives happily ever after.

Only not everyone does. The PCs are evil bastards who slipped under the radar, and they're pissed. Commence raiding and pillaging to get Evil back to it's rightful place in the universe.

So basically the plot of Overlord.

>>10080028
And by came up with, you mean 'stole from a comic book series'

>>10080062

>I totally missed the point; that all games are really just circlejerk wish fulfillment, whether it's heroes or villains.

>I am a clown and an asshat. please do not make fun of my inferior intellect

>>10080097
Really? Which series?

>>10080076
There are several ways to look at alignment as well

1) You have "human" alignments. Don't fit entirely, flawed and generally a conceptual idea of how you should act.
2) You have "non-human" alignments. Basically races created with no ability to be anything but evil.

Anyways, you want to start maldjusted and creating self-fufilling prophecies. People are assholes because you're an asshole. So rather than change yourself, you'll get strong enough to make them change! Then they'll get it.

But on the way to getting the power to make people change instead of you, you've made some enemies and you need get rid of them.

The nature of evil is that it causes its only problems for itself and inevitably is the cause of its own ruin. Therefore the evil quest is one where the characters flaws drive their world and ambitions, rather then their virtues.

>>10080136
>I was so busy trying to sound cool and make a point be rephrasing his post that I completely missed the fucking point that virtually every other poster in the thread caught.

>I am a hipster faggot trying to act like I got over on someone. Like my hero, iwasjustpretending.jpg

>>10080091

This is even better if you get one of those characters who thinks that the only way for people to truly enjoy good is for there to be some evil to compare it to.

Y'know, the "every play needs a villain, and since I don't see anyone else I guess I'll have to step up" type of villain.

rolled 48 + 18 = 66

Characters think they're doing good by bringing 'balance' back into the world.

Balance involves as much evil as they can manage.

When they do something that would normally bring shit down upon them, have the dark gods 'protect' the 'balance'.

PC's figure out later that they're just gigantic douchebags, playthings of the evil gods. Queue revenge.

>>10080152
>
The nature of evil is that it causes its only problems for itself and inevitably is the cause of its own ruin. Therefore the evil quest is one where the characters flaws drive their world and ambitions, rather then their virtues.
Reminds me of a great god game I played (communal world-building).

force them into being the villains at first with tough ethical decisions then just let them sink out from there

have them corrupt into evil

Learn the dark drives of the characters and exploit them.

For example, if one character is an arrogant motherfucker, then one of the ways to play with that is attatch more dilemna's to humility. Just like in real life.

>>10079802
I'm assuming DnD, amirite?

Include some plot-relevant NPCs for the party to work with. Make it so that there's a crusade against evil/trolls/b-tards going on and your baddies are hiding out. The baddies get roped into aiding an important Fighter/druid/guy who can't use Detect Evil on a quest to find the artifact to allow the crusade to become triumphant. If the good character dies, shit hits the fan, but if he achieves his goal, the e vil characters are screwed.

Thus, the baddy PCs are forced to play a-la Death Note or other weeaboo thrillers, where taking direct action is suicide and so cat & mouse games, deception and other mindfuckery ensue.

Make the bastard PCs THINk for once, op. It's a helluva good time

Well my characters are druggies, so I made them druglords. Each one of them represents a specific drug on a council of 7 druglords.

At first, yeah, you're going to have to do a couple of plainish adventures so that you can solidly establish the characters as amoral bastards. Make sure you slant this towards "Evil With a Purpose", though. Stuff involving slaves is always good (make certain that it's set up to NOT reward them for doing good. You reward was the warm fuzzy feeling, don't pretend like you deserve more. You can get more warm fuzzy feeling, or you actually get something TANGIBLE).

After this gets established, you need to give them something to manage. You don't have villains without a base of support of some sort. Whether it's strong-arming a bunch of goblins to work for them as a truly pathetic workbase, or setting up a network of contacts through money and blackmail, or some ancient ruins they can settle down in.

Then, you need to talk with the players, and agree on some possibilities to have as an end goal. There's a lot of generic ones, but they're going to choose a direction to move in, or you'll descend into LOLRANDUMBEVIL. From there, you should be able to swing it.

tl;dr: Only reward them for evil done with a goal in mind. Good acts don't get them anywhere, randomly raping children doesn't get them anywhere. Keep them moving along like that.

You must make each and every one of them usefull to the others


Otherwise you'll get a nasty case of chain pckilling

Personally, If I had a LE character, I'd make him the biggest asshole Lawyer in the world.

>>10080287

Backstabbing, however, should progress them. Encourage paranoia, and see if you can't get a "who breaks first" dynamic. The moment someone gets an excuse (preferably towards the end), they'll kill a party member (sneakily, if they're not an idiot). Cue plots and counterplots between PCs.

>No trolling in an alignment thread save one comment
>Actual advice on running an evil campaign
Fuck guys, this is going to the archives.

>>10080287
Don't listen to this man at all. I don't mean any offense Anon, but you've transferred D&D into something it was never meant to be

1) The moment the game becomes the acquisition of things and minions, you're fucked. Even more so, the players stop working together. It becomes 6 people playing the same game of building up armies and fighting.

This is the key problem with most evil games. Evil people don't work together in them, and they're all out to further themselves. So it turns into a war/resource game rather than a roleplaying one.

If you want to have a successful evil game, you reward teamwork, keep away from the whole evil genius mastermind mininion schpiel, and focuses on making the characters bury themselves in sin rather than leading them into sin.

Remember, no one likes a Necromancer with 30 skeletons running around. Now imagine everyone in the party being that way, because everyone wants to keep up with the Jonses

Just make shit up as you go along. This will be a real test. If you ever come to a total loss, end the session for now.

>>10080379
Evil players waging war with acquired kingdoms and using diplomacy to further their goals is fucking awesome. Sure, it isn't how D&D was "meant" to be played, but fuck that noise, nobody plays D&D like it was meant to be played EXACTLY.

>>10080379

Poster of that, here.

I probably should have said: not ACTIVE minions. Make it a background thing. An evil base to chill in.

But you're right, if you let resource acquisition go too far, you'll have problems. But if you don't do some kind of powerbuilding, or it's an EVIL game, not a VILLAIN game.

http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/10079802/

What system? Also, ITT: Faggots who think RPGs are serious business

>>10080379
Your party was approached by one of the evil gods. As a prank, he gave the group of you a blessing / curse, wherein you get some minor bonuses or power or something, but in exchange you can't ever leave eachothers' side. If any of you goes further than 300ft or something from the others, you all explode to death with no save. In order to undo the curse, the god says you have to serve his will and do evil shit. So you can do whatever you want, but you all have to reach a consensus, whether you like it or not. And it's generally evil shit, whatever the god wanted or just general evil. Some or all of your characters like doing the evil stuff and they all grow more evil as they commit the atrocities.

The big issue most DM's will have with an "evil" campaign is bad roleplaying. This is to be expected; most every player who goes into an "evil" character will play him against their personal values. This invites caricature and stereotype. There's not much you can do about it except accept the fact that, most likely, this campaign will devolve into (or remain) a comedy campaign.

If you actually get a batch of competent RP'ers, though, all you really have to do is reverse the typical archetypes. Good characters get to join the cause of a good leader? Evil characters get to join the cause of an evil leader. Just remember to tailor encounters towards violence, coercion, and deceit. Honesty in an evil campaign is rare and unwelcomed.

You could have them as plain hit men and thieves in some sort of guild or organization and grow them from there.

But really, being evil isn't about the quests you take and what you do but how you do it and how many children you orphan.

>>10080386
If only JJ Abrams took that advice YEARS ago.

I like the teamwork approach. make it so that there's an outside force that will rape the PCs HARD if they fail. Demonstrate how teamwork works out for the best ("Holy shit! The fighter saved my pasty wizard ass from that Pally!" "Holy shit! Theat rogue with high CHA just engotiated to bail our asses outta prison!")

Make the scenarios work so that you have an Eigen Plot (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/EigenPlot), so that Backstabbing CAN and WILL fuck things up.

Might I also recommedn Lawful Evil to be important to a lot of characters. they make a contract and agree to it come hell or high water?

>>10080442
Oh. Agreed. If it's part of development like any other characters, I agree. Power acquisition is acceptable on some level.

The problem because evil "takes whatever it wants and doesn't care about other people" in many cases, it makes checklist gaming fine

[ ] Skeletal Dragon
[ ] Goblin Horde
[ ] Skeletons made from Paladins made from ressurected skeletons of the most holy paladins.

And if anyone gets in your way, normally you'd think of a way to deal with it or put it aside. In an evil game, you just kill and hurt them because that is what evil does, doesn't it?

If you can't see how peace can be used for evil, you can't play an evil game.

Did you just roll 18 ones on 18 d20s?

>>10080667
Wut

>>10080683
Here:
>>10080215

rolled 6, 13, 7, 10, 3, 4, 7, 9, 1, 10 = 70

>>10080667
Holy shit.

>1) The moment the game becomes the acquisition of things and minions, you're fucked. Even more so, the players stop working together. It becomes 6 people playing the same game of building up armies and fighting.

uh wut? Evil PCs can work together quite well if they're friends. The sorcerer dude with his red dragon allies, the artificer with his golem allies, the cleric with his fiendish planar allies, and the necromancer with his bloodhulk squad.

>This is the key problem with most evil games. Evil people don't work together in them,

From your purely subjective standpoint based off, well, nothing, perhaps.

>Remember, no one likes a Necromancer with 30 skeletons running around.

You don't want level 1 minions anyway

Also, its kind of hard to argue that you're not supposed to use Animate Dead when its been in there since 1E.

This thread is relevant to my interests as I'm currently running a fresh campaign with four evil PCs.

The group is level 3 as is, they spent the early sessions as a hot-headed "chaotic-stupid" aligned party who fought anyone who looked at them crossways and tried to pillage everything they saw.

I let a session or two go on like this, as they were all new to the game and I wanted them to have fun and try and lay the hook. Soon after however, they were ambushed at a bridge by the local lords soldiers. With the barbarian pinned and the wizard almost downed by a hefty crossbow bolt, they were forced to invent a creative way out. Which they did, but the lesson was learned.

Now they've progressed, are completely hooked into the, and have turned into one of the most interesting groups I've ever had the pleasure to DM for. They know when it's time to lay down the sword and take up more subtle forms of malice.

One resource that really helped them flesh out motivation for their villainous characters is the faults section in GURPS Basic. A great resource for any campaign, and especially anyone trying to find a way to get their players that aren't as involved into the rp side really into character development.

You could begin with them being totally powerless and isolated from anyone who could be friendly/easily exploited...an idea would be for them to begin in a dungeon and have to break out together (easy revenge story too, the lawful good paladin type who put them there)

Solution: Let them dick around and then beat them mercilessly until they stop being stupid. If they are smart, they'll only have to reroll once.

I ran a villainous campaign of DH, though they served chaos rather than choosing their own ways, it turned out rather well, they progressed through the ranks of Abaddon's legion while pursuing their own goals.

I also tried running a villainous campaign in sandbox mode, they were playing as orkz and dem boyz made me proud.