Have you ever played a game where the PCs were the monsters, bad guys, undead beings, etc; and have it actually work out?
Or are these games by their nature explosive/implosive/whatever, or just plain dull?
RPGPundit
I'm in one now. It's probably the more common type of 'evil campaign', where instead of being set up that way, it's become such because the players play to win ie if their characters were real people they'd be psychopaths.
My only D&D campaign was based on the Orcs of Thar book, so th PCs were are goblins, kobolds and such. It was actually really good fun, though it was more of a comedy that a genuine exploration of evil.
Yes. I've run T&T games where every PC was a "monster race" PC. Where the goals of the party were to raid the village and eat the villagers.
Heck, it's such a common theme in T&T, that a companion game was released for doing so... Monsters! Monsters!
Heck T&T 7th is missing the 3 pages of description from monsters monsters needed to differentiate the monsters better.
For Free RPG Day, one of the two demo games I ran was a T&T game for a Balrukh and a Ghoul. A serious Pinky (the Ghoul) and the Brain (The Balrog) kind of feel. They went raiding an underground orcish home. They killed all the warriors, never even found the wizard... and made me laugh like nobody's business.
I played some Monsters Monsters...
But currently, I have a set of PCs from the Collegium Tortoris (the Guild of Torturers) . They took out the local theirve's guild and set up in their place. Though our setting does not have alignment, and as such they are free to appear quite normal and helpful to outsiders, when they kiled off another PC and mulched up the body and put in stew for orphans, I think they qualified as pretty nasty.
These 2 characters are going strong, having been gamed consistentlyu since 1995.
I've played years of Vampire, Werewolf, Demon and they worked out great.
Part of the reason those games work though is the Monsters aren't straight up EVIL. They have survival/mechanical reasons to do some of the terrible things they do. Just like all other characters in RPGs they're trying to do the best they can with what they've got. It's just what they've got makes them kill innocent people sometimes...
I've played in a few. A 3ed campaign, where we just decided to make everyone evil. Worked out great - the DM thought we'd be at each other's throats and ripping eachother off and murdering eachother, but as I said to him "I'm Chaotic EVIL, not Chaotic STUPID." We could accomplish MORE evil by (somewhat) working together, and then when he made the mistake of having a LG community dedicated to Heironious begin actively hunting us down and had the uber-good Paladin become a constant thorn in our side, well, he gave us something to band together against. How we got our revenge, and basically destroyed the campaign, was one of the most beautiful things ever.
As for monsters, we ran through Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil in our "Monsters Inc" campaign, as Savage Species had just hit, and we were all juiced to play monsters. We had Troll Monk twins, I initially played a female Orc working towards the Champion of Gruumsh PrC, but she died, so I made my Umber Hulk named Zoidberg, half-dragons, half-ogres, ettins, goblins, you name it. It was such a fun campaign.
We are currently running through a "Pirates" campaign, where we aren't EVIL, but we sure ain't good. I'm a CN cleric of Umberlee, since even though she's evil, few good coastal communities accost her chosen.
Monsters! Monsters! needs a remake. The idea is great fun and it could be repackaged as its own stand-alone game. It tends to go comedic, but I used it for a post-LotR game where Evil battles itself in Mordor for supremacy and tries to connect with other evil across Middle Earth. It was a lot of fun exploring ME where monsters had to sneak about because Men and Dwarves ruled the world again.
The players were surprisingly bloodthirsty. They made it a point to discover who destroyed the One Ring and when they did, they came for Sam in the Shire...
It didn't go well for the Gamgee clan.
Our d20 Star Wars campaign turned out that way, and ended in our tpk, which neither bothered nor surprised us. We had a blast, then the "good guys" (as in, not us) won. Heh... fun.
Quote from: Spinachcat;310646Monsters! Monsters! needs a remake. The idea is great fun and it could be repackaged as its own stand-alone game. It tends to go comedic, but I used it for a post-LotR game where Evil battles itself in Mordor for supremacy and tries to connect with other evil across Middle Earth. It was a lot of fun exploring ME where monsters had to sneak about because Men and Dwarves ruled the world again.
The players were surprisingly bloodthirsty. They made it a point to discover who destroyed the One Ring and when they did, they came for Sam in the Shire...
It didn't go well for the Gamgee clan.
Probably one of the more creative uses of a monster based game I've ever heard of. Very satisfying!
I played WoD games for years, but that doesn't really qualify here, does it?
I once played an AD&D game where I was a CN werepig and my partner in crime was a CE half-elf assassin, and that went completely overboard gonzo (my character was his mount) really, really fast. One of the most hilarious games I've ever played (and I played Toon, for the record). Think "medieval roadtrip of Charles Manson and Ted Bundy directed by the Wayans bros" and you get the tone of the game.
In another game, we played a monstrous tribe trying to settle in a sandbox-type of wilderness environment. One PC shaman goblin, another fighter half-ogre, another ranger hobgoblin etc. We would deal with our neighbours, try to avoid getting manipulated by other bad guys in the area, etc. A wilderlands sedentary freewheeling survival game of sorts. It was a blast. It was 3.5.
Quote from: Benoist;310661I played WoD games for years, but that doesn't really qualify here, does it?
I once played an AD&D game where I was a CN werepig and my partner in crime was a CE half-elf assassin, and that went completely overboard gonzo (my character was his mount) really, really fast. One of the most hilarious games I've ever played (and I played Toon, for the record). Think "medieval roadtrip of Charles Manson and Ted Bundy directed by the Wayans bros" and you get the tone of the game.
In another game, we played a monstrous tribe trying to settle in a sandbox-type of wilderness environment. One PC shaman goblin, another fighter half-ogre, another ranger hobgoblin etc. We would deal with our neighbours, try to avoid getting manipulated by other bad guys in the area, etc. A wilderlands sedentary freewheeling survival game of sorts. It was a blast. It was 3.5.
See, that's also great. The GM was pretty clever to set you up that way. Did you have to deal with the real enemy, adventurers?
Quote from: LordVreeg;310669See, that's also great. The GM was pretty clever to set you up that way. Did you have to deal with the real enemy, adventurers?
As a matter of fact, we did. Once seemingly with a "wandering monster" event, and later, with the consequences of that encounter, a raiding party determined to avenge the "poor", "murdered" (though we didn't attack first, but nevermind) adventurers.
Quote from: Benoist;310671As a matter of fact, we did. Once seemingly with a "wandering monster" event, and later, with the consequences of that encounter, a raiding party determined to avenge the "poor", "murdered" (though we didn't attack first, but nevermind) adventurers.
In our old monsters monsters game, we started as minions of an evil priest. We had to deal with a few sets of adventurers...
I like your avenging raiding party...nothing like playing the other side for giving moral amiguity a good name.
As someone once posted somewhere, (More or less) 'A real hero doesn't attack first'.
Far as I'm concerned, in that situation, the 'monsters' have the moral high ground.
Does eating some selected parts of the adventurers after the fight is over jeopardize this... "moral high ground"-thingy you just talked about? :D
Potentially.
I've only really been in less than a dozen evil/monster/bad guy campaigns in various systems. All of ours were quite successful, fun and liberating, but I think that's because we only went there when everyone was in the mood, only fairly rarely, and we approached each one as an interesting learning experience, for the most part.
Quote from: RPGPundit;310139Have you ever played a game where the PCs were the monsters, bad guys, undead beings, etc; and have it actually work out?
Or are these games by their nature explosive/implosive/whatever, or just plain dull?
RPGPundit
I ran a Forgotten Realms campaign with the PCs serving a priest of Shar tasked with restoring an ancient temple. We had a blast playing it, but the group fell apart due to external factors. :(
By the way, you should totally check this (http://jeftoonportfolio.blogspot.com/2009/02/twisted-princess.html).
I have played in bad guys/monsters campaigns. They inevitably attract bad people.
We played a Heroes Unlimited game for about a year and a half where everyone was evil. The heroes were definitely more powerful than us. We almost never came across a hero that couldn't take two of us. People like Iron Man / Batman could handle 6 of us at a time.
Still, we could cause a lot of evil / get away with a lot of shit. The game found some strange balance.
Quote from: Cranewings;310817We played a Heroes Unlimited game for about a year and a half where everyone was evil. The heroes were definitely more powerful than us. We almost never came across a hero that couldn't take two of us. People like Iron Man / Batman could handle 6 of us at a time.
Still, we could cause a lot of evil / get away with a lot of shit. The game found some strange balance.
Sounds like you had a very good GM.
I'm guessing he had an internal dynamic that sort of stated that most people who got super powers would use them for self-agrandizement, so there were a lot more of them, but he evened it out by making the goody-goodys more powerful. My guess.
Was it fun? light hearted, or not?
I remember one 'evil campaign' setting a long time ago - probably my first exposure to the concept, it did go pretty strangely.
Quirky (but fun) home-grown pre-AD&D (i.e. chainmail+) setting that had been going on forever, I made a half-elven fighter/thief who was CE for a 'side game with evil characters' that the DM wanted to run for one of his friends.
So, let's see, first level, starting out going into 'the dungeon' with a human cleric, a human fighter (nuetral) and a nasty little gnome illusionist.
We get down into the depths and the 'surprise' is sprung - this didn't make sense to me at the time, so don't expect me to be able to make it make sense. The cleric was actually lawful good and the fighter his henchman, he was luring the other two evil adventurers down into the dungeon to 'apprehend' us or something.
He used a command spell to get me to surrender, then tried to take us into custody. Things went badly (for them), and I had to fight my way back out of the lower level of the dungeon solo, after having looted all the corpses.
Afterwards, of course, I was still 'umm, what the heck?'
Quote from: KrakaJak;310427I've played years of Vampire, Werewolf, Demon and they worked out great.
Part of the reason those games work though is the Monsters aren't straight up EVIL. They have survival/mechanical reasons to do some of the terrible things they do. Just like all other characters in RPGs they're trying to do the best they can with what they've got. It's just what they've got makes them kill innocent people sometimes...
Ditto. But I would think that Pundit's question refers more to RPGs where that's not the default option.
Yes. I suppose the question could apply to a Vampire campaign or something like that, but only if beyond that all the vampires were particularly "bad guys", going out of their way to be evil for some reason, and not wussbag artistes laying around bemoaning their immortality.
Likewise, in Werewolf as I understand it the default is that the werewolf is a valiant eco-loving noble savage who fights against the true evil: capitalism and white european civilization, which along with the male gender and Jesus are responsible for EVERYTHING BAD EVER.
See, that would not apply, because according to the setting your werewolf is actually a good guy or at worst neutral. If, on the other hand you were playing a werewolf game where the werewolves were the bad guys, knew they were bad, and played it as such, that would be different.
RPGPundit
Quote from: RPGPundit;311066Yes. I suppose the question could apply to a Vampire campaign or something like that, but only if beyond that all the vampires were particularly "bad guys", going out of their way to be evil for some reason, and not wussbag artistes laying around bemoaning their immortality.
Likewise, in Werewolf as I understand it the default is that the werewolf is a valiant eco-loving noble savage who fights against the true evil: capitalism and white european civilization, which along with the male gender and Jesus are responsible for EVERYTHING BAD EVER.
See, that would not apply, because according to the setting your werewolf is actually a good guy or at worst neutral. If, on the other hand you were playing a werewolf game where the werewolves were the bad guys, knew they were bad, and played it as such, that would be different.
RPGPundit
I'll give you Jesus, capitalism and White European civilisation, but male gender? please, we are the new underclass didn't you know :)
Evil is jsut a perspective. A bunch of orcs raiding a human village and putting them all to the flame is no worse than a bunch of knights stumbling across a kobold village and putting them all to the sword. Its all about perspective.
Maybe it was because we started playing young but we had maybe a 4 year period when ever one was an evil bastard and woe betide you if you got incapacitated or hit with a sleep spell by the 'monsters' cos the chance of you ever waking up again were slim to nil :)
Good guys defend, not attack.
Yes, I sort of took the question to mean things like Sabbat for Vampire and the Black Spiral Dancers for Werewolves - obviously destructive, evil or irredeemable villains.
Quote from: RPGPundit;311066Yes. I suppose the question could apply to a Vampire campaign or something like that, but only if beyond that all the vampires were particularly "bad guys", going out of their way to be evil for some reason, and not wussbag artistes laying around bemoaning their immortality.
Likewise, in Werewolf as I understand it the default is that the werewolf is a valiant eco-loving noble savage who fights against the true evil: capitalism and white european civilization, which along with the male gender and Jesus are responsible for EVERYTHING BAD EVER.
See, that would not apply, because according to the setting your werewolf is actually a good guy or at worst neutral. If, on the other hand you were playing a werewolf game where the werewolves were the bad guys, knew they were bad, and played it as such, that would be different.
RPGPundit
Quote from: RPGPundit;311066Yes. I suppose the question could apply to a Vampire campaign or something like that, but only if beyond that all the vampires were particularly "bad guys", going out of their way to be evil for some reason, and not wussbag artistes laying around bemoaning their immortality.
Likewise, in Werewolf as I understand it the default is that the werewolf is a valiant eco-loving noble savage who fights against the true evil: capitalism and white european civilization, which along with the male gender and Jesus are responsible for EVERYTHING BAD EVER.
See, that would not apply, because according to the setting your werewolf is actually a good guy or at worst neutral. If, on the other hand you were playing a werewolf game where the werewolves were the bad guys, knew they were bad, and played it as such, that would be different.
RPGPundit
It depends on the setting of the campaign, actually.
I'm not the biggest expert in Werewolf, but I have played in a long campaign and there was no assumption that we were good. Actually, most werewolves were pretty fucking monsters when dealing with humans. We gave humans the creepies. We were just changed (late changers, as it happens) and we had to deal with our new instincts and our new society and we felt surrounded by monsters all the fucking time.
And in Vampire... most vampires are evil. They try to deal with it the best they can, but they have something inside them constantly tugging them.
Quote from: jibbajibba;311080Evil is jsut a perspective. A bunch of orcs raiding a human village and putting them all to the flame is no worse than a bunch of knights stumbling across a kobold village and putting them all to the sword. Its all about perspective.
Good one.
Quote from: jibbajibba;311080I'll give you Jesus, capitalism and White European civilisation, but male gender? please, we are the new underclass didn't you know :)
Well, "Patriarchy" then. You know, like the college professor on the Simpsons: "Everything shaped like a penis is bad".
RPGPundit
Quote from: LordVreeg;310855Sounds like you had a very good GM.
I'm guessing he had an internal dynamic that sort of stated that most people who got super powers would use them for self-agrandizement, so there were a lot more of them, but he evened it out by making the goody-goodys more powerful. My guess.
Was it fun? light hearted, or not?
Yeah, he was really good. Heroes had some advantages in his world:
1) Heroes receive backing from governments and corporations because they uphold society and order, making them more powerful.
2) The Gods favor heroes, so more powerful spiritual boons are available to good people, if they know it or not.
Which is why the most powerful super villains, like Lex Luther and Red Skull are what they are, bad guys that have the world behind them somehow.
Also, if the heroes aren't stronger, bad guys wouldn't have to be sneaky or plot, they could just attack, which isn't how it happens in comics.
On the other hand, like you said, there are WAY more bad guys. Think about how many bad guys that each super heroes has to solo. Spiderman has Dr. Octavius, The Green Goblin, Venom... Batman has Riddler, Joker, Bane, Ras Alghoul...