Evil Campaigns
Arabus13
Member Posts: 102
Has anyone ever DM'd an evil party?
I have, and the problem I found with and all evil party was, “They don’t play well with others”. I once ran a campaign were all the party members were Evil. Their goal was to deliver a minor relic to an old temple in an effort to revitalize worship in that area. The leader was a priest/necromancer. He collected around him a party of “friends” to assist them in this endeavor.
Things went fairly well until one of the main fighters in the group (a CE borderline psychotic) fell in battle. Now while the fighter was a great warrior, he was a little unstable and didn’t take direction very well. So, instead of raising him from the dead, the priest turned him into a loyal undead follower.
The other 4 party members didn’t really mind (they either didn’t care or didn’t like him all that much to begin with). However, from then on, the party took great measures to avoid combat (so as not to become another loyal minion of the priest). Eventually, they reached their destination and bypassed the wards guarding the old temple. There the forces of Good met them in battle.
So, in the depths of this old temple, the battle ensued. I always try to be an impartial DM, and I pretty much let the dice fall where they lay. In the end, the forces of Good lost the day (really, really bad rolls) and the priest placed the relic on the old altar and made the first sacrifice (from the opposing team of course).
This revitalized the altar and the adventure was a success. When I left that group, the priest was very happy with his new position and power. Of the original party of six…only two survived. The Priest and the Thief. What happened to the other four? Well to this day they are still happily shambling around following the priest’s orders. Not much excitement being an undead follower, but hey it could be worse!
Is there a moral to this story? You bet there is…when the players (that died and didn’t get raised) complained I told them, “What are you upset about…you died a hero!”
I have, and the problem I found with and all evil party was, “They don’t play well with others”. I once ran a campaign were all the party members were Evil. Their goal was to deliver a minor relic to an old temple in an effort to revitalize worship in that area. The leader was a priest/necromancer. He collected around him a party of “friends” to assist them in this endeavor.
Things went fairly well until one of the main fighters in the group (a CE borderline psychotic) fell in battle. Now while the fighter was a great warrior, he was a little unstable and didn’t take direction very well. So, instead of raising him from the dead, the priest turned him into a loyal undead follower.
The other 4 party members didn’t really mind (they either didn’t care or didn’t like him all that much to begin with). However, from then on, the party took great measures to avoid combat (so as not to become another loyal minion of the priest). Eventually, they reached their destination and bypassed the wards guarding the old temple. There the forces of Good met them in battle.
So, in the depths of this old temple, the battle ensued. I always try to be an impartial DM, and I pretty much let the dice fall where they lay. In the end, the forces of Good lost the day (really, really bad rolls) and the priest placed the relic on the old altar and made the first sacrifice (from the opposing team of course).
This revitalized the altar and the adventure was a success. When I left that group, the priest was very happy with his new position and power. Of the original party of six…only two survived. The Priest and the Thief. What happened to the other four? Well to this day they are still happily shambling around following the priest’s orders. Not much excitement being an undead follower, but hey it could be worse!
Is there a moral to this story? You bet there is…when the players (that died and didn’t get raised) complained I told them, “What are you upset about…you died a hero!”
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Comments
Last evil campaign I was in, was Drow based, now that was fun and interesting (Until the party leader got the whole group perm-killed for being most un-drow like for OOC reasons, and destroyed the whole group single handed both IC and OOC.....was a blast up to that point though.