What's the evilest group you can play as in a campaign? A party consisting entirely of slavers? What about mercenaries who rape, loot, and murder innocent people? The fantasy equivalent of the Dirlewagner brigade? How far can you go?
I had player characters kill and eat a nice normal, randomly selected family in a Heroes Unlimited once. The same player always wanted his character to steal babies from car seats and hit them with baseball bats. I had another player who always had some mad scheme or another and at one time, with a friend wanted to rape a village girl to start a new race of communists (no really). Needless to say I had to ban them from my store.
Why do you ask?
My worst player would kill and loot any NPC who had a bit of gear with slightly better stats.
Right or wrong, the well being of NPC's were never a good enough motive to act. Profit and power, now that was worth killing for.
There's really no upper limit. You might as well be asking "what's the most evil thing an individual could conceivably do?"
Perhaps a more interesting question is "what is the most evil party you could run and still get a functional campaign out of?".
An idea I've always liked is to take a big, popular fantasy setting, have my players roll up a very high level party of all the most evil factions and creatures in the setting, and then tell them their mission is to absolutely ruin the whole setting. There'd be a twisted fun in taking a revered setting like the Old World or Faerun and wrecking it for giggles. I figure you set the players right up against the biggest goodie factions in the setting and that, along with a pre-set goal, would be enough to keep them working together and their minds on something other than ground-level murderhobo-ing.
A party of all members of a doomsday cult or a criminal gang would be easy. A slaver party would work as well, but I doubt you'd get a whole group of players to agree to do it.
I think the key for any of these ideas would just be to get the players to agree in advance to the premise that they're all onboard with the group goal, and maybe set up a premise where some kind of in-group loyalty is assumed.
Quote from: MeganovaStella on October 19, 2024, 07:36:10 PMWhat's the evilest group you can play as in a campaign? A party consisting entirely of slavers? What about mercenaries who rape, loot, and murder innocent people? The fantasy equivalent of the Dirlewagner brigade? How far can you go?
Ugh. What an awful topic.
Once you're even vaguely aware of how terrible humans can go in real life, you realize there is no bottom. Some vile mother***** will find a way to dig deeper.
I don't think it's awful. Like anything worth doing it should be contextual. And yeah, playing an evil party for long term play will require actual players that are mature.
I've run Drow campaigns many times (wrote an Underdark book for it with Mike Mearls) and yeah - it's evil PC's often fighting against more evil shit.
But let's not mince things - the PC's were *evil*. I pull zero punches in my Underdark campaigns. If we're playing a Drow campaign the city-politics is terrifying and fierce. Slavery? pfft. That's the least of your worries. Demon worship is normal. Theocratic/Mageocracies where power rules over all, racism is the rule of the day, and practically any/all other cultures are generally to be predated upon is normal.
A party of Evil characters isn't by itself an issue. The real question is relative to the setting.
Players can re-enact the Christian-Newsome murders on the scale of a village or town if they like. I'd probably tap out because it just doesn't appeal to me.
In the past, we had the game Poison'd where beheading a victim and then raping the corpse's esophagus was applauded as "good gaming". The level of evil can get pretty evil if you want to go full blown shock jock about it.
When I do evil in game as a player or GM, there has to always be a logical reason for it beyond the perpetrator is a bad guy, crazy, or following cultural norms. I admit, usually it is to use terror as a tool, but a tool to achieve what end?
Depends on the setting. In modern to future times, statistically it would be socialists/communists by sheer kill count (whether their own people or those they're seeking to conquer). They have the added benefit of appearing to be by their words of a vastly different alignment to their actual actions and their easily predictable consequences. For a fantasy setting to historical setting, it's hard to think of a greater terror to common folk and royalty than something akin to the Mongolian khanate hordes sweeping out from the steppes.
Quote from: MeganovaStella on October 19, 2024, 07:36:10 PMWhat's the evilest group you can play as in a campaign? A party consisting entirely of slavers? What about mercenaries who rape, loot, and murder innocent people? The fantasy equivalent of the Dirlewagner brigade? How far can you go?
I have no idea.
My default playstyle is set to "the paragon" and about the nastiest I can pull off is "knight in sour armor." (ie. cynical paragon).
I tried playing Anarchist (Palladium equivalent of Chaotic Neutral) once... the GM changed me to Scrupulous (Palladium Chaotic Good) after the second session because while I could pull off "I'll do what I want when I want" all I did when I wanted was to help a group of persecuted prisoners (whose crime was poverty) and strike down evildoers (the nobles who set up that system) without bothering with the judge or jury.
I don't do well with evil party members in general, but the absolute worst evil PCs in my experience are the ones who think they're being good guys as they commit atrocities... like "superhero" who took all those they suspected of being criminals back to their secret base where she (female player) locked them up and tortured them (invariably men and invariably using electricity to the genitals) over days or weeks until they believed they'd repented or executed them if they would not... or the guy who used his telepathy to mind control criminals into being his personal army to fight other criminals with.
There is no limit or vile enough bottom evil can go, so knock yourself out. I only play Hârn and my older campaigns hade some really twisted PCs and NPCs in them.
Quote from: RNGm on October 20, 2024, 07:29:39 AMFor a fantasy setting to historical setting, it's hard to think of a greater terror to common folk and royalty than something akin to the Mongolian khanate hordes sweeping out from the steppes.
It can work for space opera too. The Clans in the Battletech universe went with this angle.
Quote from: HappyDaze on October 20, 2024, 12:08:39 PMQuote from: RNGm on October 20, 2024, 07:29:39 AMFor a fantasy setting to historical setting, it's hard to think of a greater terror to common folk and royalty than something akin to the Mongolian khanate hordes sweeping out from the steppes.
It can work for space opera too. The Clans in the Battletech universe went with this angle.
I'm only very casually familiar with BT lore (I was more of a Heavy Gear guy back in the day) but I do agree that it would also work well for a space opera/scifi setting which I hadn't considered in my post.
I would say any vampire game. I mean modern vampires lustfully slaughter their food.
Quote from: Ruprecht on October 20, 2024, 06:18:56 PMI would say any vampire game. I mean modern vampires lustfully slaughter their food.
My players insist (and I don't agree with them) that some of my best campaigns were my Dark Age Sabbat games. They were wtf-brutal. They were very fun, dark, but *I* personally don't think they were my best stuff I've run. In terms of WoD campaigns, they disagree.
But yeah, again, with the right group and a firm GM hand, you absolutely can do "Evil campaigns". But the players should know what they're in for. Just like when I run supers campaigns and players want to be villains... Don't be surprised when Mjolnir suddenly cracks you upside the skull if you get big enough britches.
I played a necromancer in an evil D&D campaign once. After the rest of the party murdered a small village, I turned them all into zombies and had them rape each other. Eventually my PC became a lich and I just went around touching people and either killing them or freezing them in place, watching them slowly rot away.
I mean, depravity has no real limits when alcohol is involved.
Easy, start a mixed demon campaign in In Nomine SJG. Starting characters can be any of the evilest hierarchy of ideas you categorize. Then determine what is obscene (off scene) for your table and go forth. Part of the struggle is trying to meet your Superior's Word maintenance and expectations of promise amid a bureaucratic structure of manipulative, back-stabbing, dark triad narcissistic psychopathic borderlines forever seeking anything at your expense. And tormenting and corrupting humans is your job.
Next?
Part of the appeal of running an evil campaign is the 1-upmanship.
Trying to top that evil idea that your friends just thought of is a challenge.
It's messed up, but that's the point. How bad can you get? Challenge accepted!
Like I said, I dealt with a lot of murder and theft, or both because my best friend played as a power gamer "munchkin".
But, it was when we got to play US GI's in a Vietnam war game that it probably went a bit too real. My buddy got a lecture and the game session ended for the night because his mom overheard him using period appropriate racial slang.
We used to do that a lot when we were kids. Play chaotic evil clerics who wore their victims faces after murdering them. We'd just seen the Texas Chainsaw Massacre (on pirate VHS!).
There's no real limit (assuming everyone is up for it). I mean, it's only a silly game of imagination afterall. If people somehow correlate in game actions to the real world then they are either imbeciles or mentally deficient. Either way don't play with them!
But being 'evil' for just the sake of it is pretty boring. We used to play a lot of Sabbat games and that got very violent but even they had their own moral code and had valid reasons for doing what they did. Or at least thought they did.
A group who believes they are "right" in their thinking and that other people are "wrong" and no amount of demonstrating otherwise will sway them to the difference.
These are the scariest motherfuckers you can have at any table.
Quote from: THE_Leopold on October 21, 2024, 01:49:21 PMA group who believes they are "right" in their thinking and that other people are "wrong" and no amount of demonstrating otherwise will sway them to the difference.
These are the scariest motherfuckers you can have at any table.
Repeated for emphasis and worse when it's the PLAYERS who are convinced they're acting in the right and not just the PCs and when said players get upset when the consequences of their actions come back to bite them, because in their minds they were being the good guys and don't deserve to suffer consequences for being "good."
I had to stop GMing for that group.
Quote from: Chris24601 on October 21, 2024, 02:48:11 PMQuote from: THE_Leopold on October 21, 2024, 01:49:21 PMA group who believes they are "right" in their thinking and that other people are "wrong" and no amount of demonstrating otherwise will sway them to the difference.
These are the scariest motherfuckers you can have at any table.
Repeated for emphasis and worse when it's the PLAYERS who are convinced they're acting in the right and not just the PCs and when said players get upset when the consequences of their actions come back to bite them, because in their minds they were being the good guys and don't deserve to suffer consequences for being "good."
I had to stop GMing for that group.
Story time? Por Favor?
Quote from: THE_Leopold on October 21, 2024, 01:49:21 PMA group who believes they are "right" in their thinking and that other people are "wrong" and no amount of demonstrating otherwise will sway them to the difference.
These are the scariest motherfuckers you can have at any table.
Kanye the Giant
It occurs to me that the Classic Traveller adventure Exit Visa might be the most evil adventure ever written.
Quote from: David Johansen on October 21, 2024, 07:25:30 PMIt occurs to me that the Classic Traveller adventure Exit Visa might be the most evil adventure ever written.
Yes!
That is the one adventure that I have never ran because I am pretty sure that if I did, I'd lose my Players.
Quote from: THE_Leopold on October 21, 2024, 02:53:22 PMQuote from: Chris24601 on October 21, 2024, 02:48:11 PMQuote from: THE_Leopold on October 21, 2024, 01:49:21 PMA group who believes they are "right" in their thinking and that other people are "wrong" and no amount of demonstrating otherwise will sway them to the difference.
These are the scariest motherfuckers you can have at any table.
Repeated for emphasis and worse when it's the PLAYERS who are convinced they're acting in the right and not just the PCs and when said players get upset when the consequences of their actions come back to bite them, because in their minds they were being the good guys and don't deserve to suffer consequences for being "good."
I had to stop GMing for that group.
Story time? Por Favor?
You already got part of it in my post upthread, but alrighty.
Superhero game. I was a player in that one, running a classic brick hero with a wide array of non-lethal strength tricks. I built a power to let me take hits for everyone near/behind me and even had a personal defense penalty representing my reflexes being to move into the line of fire. Classic no kill rule.
Female player made a vigilante type whose primary focus was capturing those she believed to be gangbangers and imprisoning them in her secret base so she can torture them for information; usually by attaching a car battery to their genitals; before killing them. Zero concern they could be innocent. Just being gang adjacent they were guity.
The other one mentioned used mind control on low-level criminals to fight other criminals (and get people to buy their self-help books). Rewriting people's personalities because they disagreed (because their views were objectively right and it saved time on arguments) and using them at one point as suicide bombers to take out villains were among my braking points (two bads guys taken out at once in their view). They probably would have used it on my PC too if the GM hadn't banned interparty PvP.
Both felt they were being good guys removing criminals from the streets and getting people to cooperate for the greater good. I left because my hero felt permanently sullied by not being able to do anything about these "heroes."
Another game I played in we were approached by a birdman who was representing his tribe and wanted to negotiate so we could pass safely (he was very polite and had not threatened us). One PC decides to backstab and murder them in cold blood. Their rationale? We could skin him and wear him like a suit as our "escort" through their territory. That game DID allow PvP though and after hearing his rationale I rained fire down on him until he'd been burnt to ash. Fortunately the party outside that PC was equally horrified, just too stunned to act, so the adventure could continue, but the other player really didn't get why I'd take him out over murdering a random NPC.
Another example... and the instance I referenced specifically about walking away from GMing was a Vampire game where the players had described themselves as virtual paragons, one bought their Humanity up to 9, another put enough into Conscience and Self-Control to start with an 8. I'd therefore set up truly monstrous elders for them to contend with expecting a Vampions-type campaign.
Their first action was to sell out a just introduced ally to the Prince to win his favor knowing it would also require killing a bunch of innocent homeless men, women and children he was protecting. They didn't understand why I was calling for Conscience checks... it wasn't like THEY killed anyone after all, they were just seeking to improve their station so they could affect more effective change in the future.
Then they set up a charitable blood donation center with all the advertising being about how they were serving the children and the poor with their donations, but most of it went into the bellies of themselves and their allies. They justified it as it won them allies and things would be better for children and the poor once they were in charge.
The last straw for me was when they decided to take out a nest of Sabbat beneath an occupied apartment complex by setting the whole place on fire just before dawn and having their ghouls gun down anyone trying to flee the building. Completely callous disregard for human life (but it was to get rid of a greater evil).
If they'd possessed an ounce of self-awareness and played it off as an example of how people can get lost along the path to affecting change I probably would have been okay with it. I can live with a story about monsters so long as it's recognized they're monsters.
But they didn't. They pitched a fit every time I called for Conscience checks failing to understand that "the greater good" has been the justification of some of the greatest human monsters in history.
We never got around to carrying out the execution of the apartment arson. I'd had enough though I didn't think it would accomplish anything to explain why. The game ended with them thinking they were the heroes of the story and completely oblivious to the fact that they were rapidly eclipsing the vampires I'd set up to be the villains (the vampires they decided were meant to be their allies with similar ideas were the freaking Giovanni and a closet Baali).
So, yeah, the worst are definitely players who think they're playing heroes.
Quote from: jeff37923 on October 21, 2024, 08:06:16 PMQuote from: David Johansen on October 21, 2024, 07:25:30 PMIt occurs to me that the Classic Traveller adventure Exit Visa might be the most evil adventure ever written.
Yes!
That is the one adventure that I have never ran because I am pretty sure that if I did, I'd lose my Players.
I had to dig out my book because I don't think I ever actually read this adventure...is this worse than murdering orc babies?
Quote from: Brad on October 21, 2024, 10:05:44 PMQuote from: jeff37923 on October 21, 2024, 08:06:16 PMQuote from: David Johansen on October 21, 2024, 07:25:30 PMIt occurs to me that the Classic Traveller adventure Exit Visa might be the most evil adventure ever written.
Yes!
That is the one adventure that I have never ran because I am pretty sure that if I did, I'd lose my Players.
I had to dig out my book because I don't think I ever actually read this adventure...is this worse than murdering orc babies?
It's a scavenger hunt through a bureaucratic morass to try and get the correct forms and signatures to leave port. It could be fun if you went roleplaying heavy with it, but your typical group would get frustrated halfway through and just start shooting the clerks.
Quote from: jeff37923 on October 22, 2024, 01:58:48 AMIt's a scavenger hunt through a bureaucratic morass to try and get the correct forms and signatures to leave port. It could be fun if you went roleplaying heavy with it, but your typical group would get frustrated halfway through and just start shooting the clerks.
Marc Miller was in the Army so maybe that adventure was based on reality...sounds horrific.
Based on what I see in modern RPGs is a straight White, God loving/fearing male who wants to have a family/has a large family.
Quote from: Chris24601 on October 21, 2024, 09:48:05 PMSo, yeah, the worst are definitely players who think they're playing heroes.
That sounds terrible and incredible at the same time.
Their justification is as bad as any fanatical group thinking "The Ends Justify the Means". It can, if you are willing to live with the consequences along the way. These usually lead to them becoming that which they are meant to destroy. The cycle starts all over again.
thanks for sharing.
:) Why thanks Chris for sharing those stories! I always found the alignment ethos one of the most fun parts of games. And those are great examples how ethos affects justifications which affects behavior.
That vampire example reminds me of a VtM game I ran which had the Princedom set up some junkie flop houses as a more humane place to corral the addicts, keep tabs on drifters, and with an occasional blood doll or blood puppy residing. Infiltrating it as a pretend addict and watching the sadness was a moral quandry for my Anarch PCs, who wanted to control (liberate) the territory for themselves. The human concentrated brokenness weared away at the vampire PC spies inside. And then there was the question: We as a group don't have the $ and professional means to help people like this, let alone contain this, or the drug trade, and there's far too many evil humans who make money and power off this to stop it completely without risking the Masquerade. This Camarilla adhesive bandage might actually be as much a mercy as a depressing nightmare.
;) Humans are frightening. It's their world. Your monsters have to live in it.
But eventually you do have to have that discussion with players whether they have a moral compass at all, and what 'pole North' do they think it points to. It's often a difficult discussion to have with people who haven't been taught morals & ethics let alone traveled and seen much of horror from the other's shoes. Often childish aswers ensue that you'd have to walk them through A Lot to see another view. ;) Or you could roleplay out the actions of such consequences as gaming fodder, but I've had few repeat takers as it tends to trouble their inner peace... they like easier, more action-packed answers. Their play, my play, I learn to give and take as much as I can. :)
A group of sensitivity writers telling WotC to hire them or else they will sick their twitter sock puppets on WotC.
Quote from: Opaopajr on October 23, 2024, 12:31:29 PMBut eventually you do have to have that discussion with players whether they have a moral compass at all, and what 'pole North' do they think it points to. It's often a difficult discussion to have with people who haven't been taught morals & ethics let alone traveled and seen much of horror from the other's shoes. Often childish aswers ensue that you'd have to walk them through A Lot to see another view. ;) Or you could roleplay out the actions of such consequences as gaming fodder, but I've had few repeat takers as it tends to trouble their inner peace... they like easier, more action-packed answers. Their play, my play, I learn to give and take as much as I can. :)
Well, I do know (or at least strongly suspect) the answers to some of them. Not really my place to play amateur psychologist, but I will say that, knowing the persons behind these PCs, I can certainly understand how those points were reached (short answer - trauma and cope) and why it made sense for them to evaluate as being "good" even if I don't find it enjoyable to play as if those points were the right and moral thing to do.
Put another way, I haven't had my belief the in general goodness of people kicked out of me by life. Others have and RPGs are not the place to working through such things which is why I generally just left things lie rather than trying to dig into it.
Why yes, never do free unlicensed therapy at the RPG table. ;) But yeah, more than a few people who come with a rougher life experience, from my observation, favor a far more extreme application of punishments. You could try explaining the philosophical underpinnings of ethics, compassion, mercy, and restraint but at that point: unreceptive audience, unpaid teaching, no gaming occuring. :) C'est la vie.
It's hard to find that audience who can do a lot of things beyond the lowest common denominator. Hence why as much as people rail against adventure tropes like "meeting in a tavern", "merchant caravan", and "fetch quests" it's really the strongest foundation from which to start with a brand new batch of players. From there you can curate which players have the interest and capacity for more complexity. Know thyself and know thy audience.
Simple: A party consisting of members of the modern Democratic Party in the United States. Choose your super-villain: Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, Hilary Clinton, the list goes on.
Kamala Harris would just be a mindless golem serving her master(s).
Nothing in the universe is more evil.
My party of Illithid PC's is probably more evil than that. Like me, they don't give a fuck about politics. But those brains...