Fun fact, you can also fuck up a good character by playing like an idiot and doing the "Idiot federal Agent" controlling your guns and the citizen calling the cops on you, but you failed to show your ID follow protocol, because you thought you are above him and now the police has to treat you like a possible suspect until verified, to the point of having to arrest you.. The key is what your character and others can know, and must deduce from the information at hand, from a Mary Sue, know it all character who always gets to the right conclusion and guards always accidentally stumbling on your party and thus thwarting their infiltration mission etc. It means you need great story building and narrations skills to work together with the entire team and DM not just play your character.
DnD writes that vampires are evil because, when they turn, their personalities are warped. A love for their hometown can become a tyrannical obsession wherein the vampires considers its people as, "My property". I used the same logic whenever I make an evil character. Take a typically good character trait and distort it. For example, "I love my vampire wife enough to send children to her to be turned into vampires because, as an undead, she is incapable of childbearing".
I very much agree with this way of being 'evil'. A good trait warped or corrupted to the point of inherently going against the definition of the trait. It's a way of earning some type of sympathy or a way of understanding on WHY you are evil instead of JUST BECAUSE you're evil.
That is a good point. Actually, the definition of evil as a corruption of the good goes back at least to Aristotle; evil only exists as flaws or corruptions of good.
My favorite evil character was a Lawful Good fighter who was a surviving soldier of a recently fallen empire. He simply couldn't pass a soldier of the new regime on the street without trying to kill them. In his mind, he was still obeying the literal wording of his oath of fealty. The rest was D&D mechanics. He was too powerful to kill but couldn't overthrow the kingdom by himself. Hence why he surrounded himself with evil party members. It was especially fun whenever the DM forgot about my character and threw a Paladin at the party. So many of their best abilities in 3.5 just didn't apply to me. In the end he became just another warlord a future party vanquished.
With a bit of a twist, this could become more "Neutral Hungry with a sapient twist". The vampire is genuinely a good lord and his people know his nature and love him. But some day, they run out of bandits and would-be conquerers...
I played a Lawful Evil monk in a pick up game. It wasn't roleplay heavy, but I always made sure: Finish off enemies who might get up and cause us trouble later, get paid my share as soon as humanly possible, and be mindful of opportunities for additional profit or power. I think no one in the party actually really noticed I was evil until we met a Silver Dragon as part of the plot, she immediately detect alignmented the party, and she looked right at my character and said (paraphrased)"...I have so many bigger things to deal with than you, don't give me a reason to flay your flesh from your bones and don't betray these people later, cool?" It's always nice when the party doesn't know you're evil because you've been such a productive member of the team that they haven't had a reason to question your motives.
i once played a "evil overlord" in a heros campain of my friend. Backstory was like: my char was a Paladin in training as he wittnes how his family and friend was slaughtert in a war between 2 "good" kingdoms. so he brokes his oaths and start study magic and still swordfight (he toss the most holy magic beside to learn fire magic) than he joins a bandit camp and raise in the ranks till he could take over and than took some other bandits into his minions. than he conquers some villages and a castle where his old home was to get his own "kingdome" to attack the "good" ones as revange. BUT than comes the campain where a bigger evil ( if i remember right it was a big dragon in controlle of a evil wizzard, some thing standart like this) who is a danger to his realm too. So he teamt up with the heros in disguise as a warmage to defeat the evil wizzard and maybe to get control over the dragon. he act than similar to your monk with being payed out as fast as possible. Kills enemies he thinks are maybe a danger later if the keept alive (this was one thing my DM did not like cose i kill with it some opportunites for him). one of the funniest conflicts where when the char of a other player from the party, a noble priestes, fall in love with my warmage becourse of a life safing situation (jeahre more sterotypes as we love them 🤭!) and he total knows: she will not be not amused at the point the background that only i and the DM knows will reveald. His Priestes was from one of the Kingdome that my char is a threat to :D in one tavern conversation the priestes told her backstory like:" normaly i heal the soldiers on the borders of our Kingdom to protec the borders for the evil next to us, but since the dragon start his attacks the fights on the borders comes to a stalemate and no side advance his activityes.
I played the evil man out in a 3.5 campaign as a monk/necromancer on a quest for lichdom. The party knew I was "evil" (detect spells) from the word go. They're cool with it because I'm helpful and don't walk around with an army of undead. The party (me included) save a town and decide to make it our permanent home. I go above and beyond to help the towns folk and be a hero to them. This leads the paladin to question my alignment. I point out a child in the town square and inform the paladin that "in 500 years her bones will be dust and her descendants shall happily pour my wine. As for you and your god. You will be a foot note in my glorious rise to power. DO NOT misunderstand me, I would as soon rip her heart from her chest as ruffle her hair if the former would insure my eternal reign." Cue epic fight in the town square.
I had an alcoholic mage whose goal in life was to find the perfect drink. He ended up loading a horde of goblins, and conquered multiple places, with the only real stipulation placed on the goblins being that they weren't allowed to damage any place that served alcohol.
Last evil campaign I played, the DM was running a parallel good campaign. The evil side got along with each other and crushed challenges while the good side had selfishness, domineering characters, infighting, and could not get their act together. Differences were: 1) the evil group knew the rest of the world was hostile to them 2) that continued mutual protection was conditional on mutual benefit and respect
a fun thing would be a dopple campaign where both side are the good ones and in there eyes the other ones are the bad ones. Like : group one conquer a village and liberate them in there eyes. But for the other group the enemie has enslaved there people of this city.
that second point is the major thing people forget when playing evil PCs. Even in good parties, an evil PC isn't going to go cackling mad and start stabbing his party members, because that runs counter to his own protection and goals. I had a Drow cleric of Lolth once (old character, forgive the unoriginality), who was LE. Absolutely *hated* the party (all but 1 were men), but kept that smile on her face. Her logic was that if she, a drow, worked with a hero party, she could help turn the image of drow around, and show the surface dwellers that drow weren't so bad... So they'd let their guard down, letting drow infilitrate the society, kill as many people as they could, and round up as many sacrifices as they could before they were found out. Sadly, the campaign never got far enough to see her play out, but she would've only backstabbed the party if she thought that it would serve her end goal better, which, in 99% of cases, losing her surface world escort of good people would be far more detrimental than not.
The real trick is putting good qualities to bad or corrupted ends: a righteous paladin who burns villages down for not being pious enough; a mercenary who always fulfills his contract, regardless of how evil it is; a barbarian looking to find the strongest people to prove his strength and willing to kill anyone who gets in the way of it. They could even work together begrudgingly because their goals aren’t in conflict.
if you need inspiration of the Paladin who burns down a village for the greater good, warcrafts Arthas is the archetype of it. Purge the ill before the becomes ghouls.
My favorite suggestion for playing an evil character in a good campaign? The other players are not to be considered opposition, they are your valued companions to be protected at all costs. After all, they're good, noble and will save you for no better reason that they are good. No fear of backstabbing or betrayal. Sure you'll have to give up some treasure, or an easy victory on occasion, but into any life a little rain must fall. And they'll lead you into better opportunities for gain later anyways. And most importantly the party belongs to you. They are yours and nobody takes anything from you. Nobody.
Playing as a Emperor Palpatine or Handsome Jack archetype is always fun for a villain campaign, though 40% of the time there’s always that one guy who goes full murder-hobo and screws up the plan you spent weeks making and then you gotta flee town before you get lynched or the OP hero party hunts you down before you’re strong enough to fight back.
You've just described one of the campaign I'm playing right now with perfect accuracy. My party wasn't exactly evil, but they weren't exactly good either. They have shaky moral compass at best, and are willing to turn a blind eye on acts of villainy, as long as they get their fair share of loot. My character was this Palpatine/Luthor type of gaining power to change the world through clockwork planning. The problem is there's this one barbarian character whose idea of a Chaotic Evil is 'fuck you all I want everything and I will kill everything in my path' type of deal. His favourite hobby was offering sacrifices to prove to his God that he is worth of his own power (Zealot Barb, figures). My character and his character often gets into fights but none ever ended with one of us dying due to my character's Buddhist Monk-like patience and restraint. Long story short, my character's stolen herself an armada and became the de facto admiral of the fleet. As a gesture of good will (and the player himself also requests it to me directly), my character gave the barbarian a ship and a crew to captain to, and overjoyed with this sudden role in leadership and independence, he fucked off to pirate a bit. Before he departed, another character (artificer blacksmith) requested some coal for her projects to the barbarian. It went as well as you'd expect. The barbarian died in the most stupidest way possible. As a 'leader', he's horrendous, as a 'fighter', he's also horrendous. He bosses his subordinates around. He 'leads the way' into a labyrinth despite having a ranger NPC accompanying him. He insults and intimidates the people that hates him, despite having to buy things from them. He almost caused a war between orckind and dwarfkind. And even when given the chance to literally walk free, he chooses to fight (and promptly dies for it). The player is not 'that guy', or was he a 'problem player', his character is just a grade A asshole, which still surprised me to this day how he did not die earlier in the campaign. Still, I wished that the barbarian did not die and learn from his own mistakes, and not be such an asshole all the time.
At times like those I find it helpful to join the lynch mob chasing the murder hobo. Be sure to advocate for hanging the murder hobo before letting them speak the loudest and you can usually get away with losing just the one PC.
In Cult of the Lamb you aren't necessarily playing as a villain, but becoming one and sacrificing your morals (and sometimes your people) is often a much easier path to achieve the goal, than trying to stick with ethics. You have to go out of your way to not get your hands dirty. While there are other "choose your hero's moral compass" adventures like Undertale, those games often rewards you for not turning evil, but not Cult of the Lamb.
In fact choosing to do good in videogames with morality systems and getting rewarded for it feels cheap. What's more exciting is choosing to do an evil action in order to better your own goals, or to stick to your morals even if it will cost you the missed opputinity in getting more power?
Due to how morality is depicted in modern media, if you get more rewards being bad than good, being good seems worthless if only to get the ' good ' or ' true ' Ending . And I know I'd much rather have fun rather than tediously looking up guides on how to get that flawless good ending for the sake of a CG telling me how much of a good boy I've been . I'm a believer of intentional bad game design is still bad game design, Undertale to me kinda flopped on morality for me in that aspect . But I don't want a Bioshock where an entire other route is negated because you get more rewards being not a child murderer rather than child harvester 2000 . I dunno, games are really hard at portraying and keeping Morality since we've been geared towards getting the most fun out of the experience . Unless you're Disco Elysium . Disco Elysium is the bomb-
Highfleet takes this approach too. There's no big penalties for a low kindness rating at all asides making a check involving saving one NPC's life harder - Which if he does live, takes half your fleet with him, crippling you majorly.
There's something appealing about an extra challenge and difficulty in taking the moral high road, alongside possible ethical questions where you'll do something immoral for the greater good because prevailing without it isn't feasible.
I remember playing a "villain campaign". Overall we at least tried to make our characters not some complete monsters who just want to kill and plunder. Some were bounty hunters, some were bent on a higher goal and so on. Mine was a draconic origin human sorceress, who was a member of a cult, worshipping a dragon deity. She was fanatical and borderline unhinged, but she had some strong morals against killing children (since the cult took her in as an orphan child too) and wanted to spread her faith and gain followers and maybe even apprentices. She was more than happy to burn alive "heretics" and sacrifice captured enemies to her god though. But the main reason I'm typing this is to tell that we had one player who decidedly played "the bad guy" from the very start always trying to hurt his party members (us) or somehow mess with them, making the campaign worse and more irritating for everyone and using the worst possible understanding of chaotic evil. After a couple of sessions all of us (DM included) were so fed up with that, that the player finally understood it can't go on like this, came up with a new, normal character and used him to kill off the first one.
Noice. I liked playing as a Psychopath Changeling Doctor. It wasn't an evil campaign, but I was an evil character, prioritizing appearance and usefulness of those around me, as well being the support character, so I have an easier time working with the team. I also wasn't strictly serious with the character. Your character sounded really fun, and I wanted to share mine, cause I thought it'd be nice. What was the cult like?
Too many people use "bad guy" campaign as just cathartic exercises to let out their pettiness and their selfishness. Rarely do you get people who want to be a true villain. Rarely still do you find people who understand the nuances of villainy. As a player though, I have always wanted to try my hand at playing the secret villain in a campaign. Maybe one day I'll have the time and the group for it... maybe
I did it was very fun. Long story short: My warmage is the "evil overlord" and his minios are the normal enemies of the heros group. But in this szenario a bigger evil arrives and my char join the heros group in disguise for the goal to erase the bigger evil so it is not a threat to his realm.
@@turkoositerapsidi yeah kinda Roboter girly man age and primaris are to some extend annoying but it doesn’t really hurt much of the good lore it might have become easier for newbies to mistake the imperium for good guys which is a bit sad and I hope they don’t do the „adjusted for modern and wider audiences“
Thank you so much for making this. The one thing that gets me the most angry is when somebody is playing more chaotic evil but insists they are either chaotic neutral or good because they love their pet cat and are following the main story while last game they burned down an orphanage for the lols. I even had somebody say they are "Lawful evil" even though their first law was that they didn't have to follow any of their own laws or bonds.
@James McAthey While it was half-baked in mechanical execution, Quest for Glory V had "Sense Aura", which let Paladins detect a target's motivations and emotions. This let you find evil in a more realistic sense. (And also Neutral Hungry)
Yeah, I played a couple "evil" campaigns. While both were fun & had great moments, both ended rather poorly. One, because I/we play "bad guys" as LD says instead of villains. (the DM had the BBEG cast a Geas on us to compel us to work together and avoid PvP) The other, because we had a novice DM who was getting frustrated that we were playing "villains" and externally were acting relatively "good"/mild & he found it boring and instructed us to "up the evil", so we did. . . . .AND. . . .the population turned on us, the forces of good took notice of us & sent a couple of OP "enforcers" to investigate. (and consequently, wipe us out) But yeah, the "bad guy" vs. "villain" statement at the start pretty much sums it up. Now, if I ever play "evil" aligned characters, (evil campaign or not) I embrace Picard's line of dialogue from Drumhead; "Villains who twirl their mustaches are easily recognized. Those who cloak themselves in good deeds are well hidden indeed."
The problem that i found playing a short evil campaign was the amout of players that wanted to bring good characters, even more good than what they did in usual campaign
"They should know that Reys tend to steal things." XD, I love that you'll always find a way to take a jab at Rey. This was actually very insightful. I'm glad to see a detailed description showing what separates the bad guys from the villains, the boys from the men. 😎
@@jamalisujang2712 I wish I could say she's just kinda Mary Sueish, but she is the epitome of a Mary Sue tbh. She is overpowered with skills that just show up when she needs them. Men are suddenly worthless in her presence. Basically, the universe and its rules will bend to accommodate her, whether it's suddenly she is an ace pilot, suddenly she can expertly use the force, suddenly she can beat someone who has trained for years in both the force and saber combat without any real explanation, etc.
@@jamalisujang2712 Pretty much lol. The Mary Sue actually was born from a Star Trek fanfiction if you didn't know. LD covers it in his videos discussing Mary Sues. Definitely worth the watch.
I recently hosted a villainous Star Wars game. One player was a stormtrooper tasked with finding Rebel bases, another was a former Black Sun smuggler looking to start his own crime syndicate, and the third was a combat medic on loan from a Hutt. The three effectively had a symbiotic relationship to hold the group together: The smuggler allowed them to navigate and negotiate the underworld, the medic helped keep everyone patched up and lent a hand when fighting, and the stormtrooper gave them sanctuary in Empire controlled territory and kept their police of their backs. When they came upon a couple Rebel bases, the group opted to help them establish trade networks with other bases and bog them down with contracts with Hutts. Their pragmatism allowed the Empire to locate other bases and win favor with a Hutt; everyone's motives were fulfilled while keeping the story going. I never pushed them to give up their evil ways; funnily enough, they did find themselves at one point "going native" when trying to figure out how to solidify an alliance between the Rebels and a third faction, but caught themselves and said, "What are we doing? Screw the Rebels!" (though they did say they as players felt bad for the Rebels). This was a nice change of pace compared to when we had tried years ago to do a villain campaign, but one player kept reflexively going for the "We need to topple the Empire" route, effectively derailing the campaign.
One of my favorite character was a C-E elven wizard. He didn't have any real goal, he just went with the flow and loved to spend time with his friends (yes, evil characters can have friends, they'll do everything for them) He didn't care about laws and rules, but tried to follow them as much as he could stomac so he wouldn't bring trouble to the group. Sure, sometimes he made some mistakes, some small like stoling a purse from a noble who insulted the warrior, and some bigger like skinning alive the crime lord who threathened the rogue's family. No one could touch his friends and go unscathed. One thing he did once was burn a whole town down. They tried to stone the cleric, his girlfriend, to death because they found out she was worshipping Nerul, god of Death. That was a mistake, the walls of fire, fire balls and every other fire spell rained on that town untill nothing was left other than ashes. No one escaped, not even the young or the elderly. Sure, he went to far doing it and we had trouble in that country and all of those around it for the rest of the campaing, but no one touched his loved one without concequences. Not one player around the table was mad at me for doing it, we all knew we were going for an evil campaing and we were ready to accept the concequences of our actions. The thing is, our DM did something really important before the campaing started. He didn't ask us for a very detailed background, but he asked us 4 questions. "Excluding members from the group, who would be your character best friend or ally? Who would be his worse enemy or rival? What is your character's goal? What is his worse fear, even if it isn't to the point of a real phobia?" Those 4 questions are enough to help players better understand their characters and think a lot more about their actions, which is why that campaing went for a long time and was really fun. Without those questions, it would have been very easy to only create a bunch of murder hobos.
@@simondemoulin5815 It is indeed a feat way to shape a vilain, both as a character and an NPC. Also, it really help the DM a lot with their campaing, it give them so much stuff on which to work to really make the character feel like a part of the world. As an example, my Wizard's fear was an actual phobia, Acrophobia. His friend was his little sister he loved dearly and left behind with one of his other friends when he got too much heat from his misdead. He left her to protect her, otherwise he would have had to kill all of her friends times and times again, breaking her in the process, something he didn't want to do. One of our arc during that campaing was to go and save his little sister who was kidnapped by Avariels (winged elves) in the towering spirals on top of a mountain. It was the hardest thing my character ever had to do, but he still did it for his sister... The Avariels found out they made a mistake, but they were still able to kill the rogue during our raid. Said Rogue had a fear of ghosts. Not a phobia, just a simple fear. They made him very jumpy and paranoïd because he grew up in a haunted house. One of the thing we had to do was go and reclaim his family heirloom in said house, where he had to come face to face with his abusive grand-father's ghost and it was one of the highlights of the campaing, it was very emotional. That's another example of the help those questions can give the DM.
How to make a good evil PC: Step 1: Determine the characters wants Step 2: the character will pursue those wants over the well-being of anyone around him. Step 3: The character will not pursue those wants if it endangers him or his goals, as that would mean not being able to pursue those wants in the long run. Done. It's really that simple. Playing an evil PC, even in a hero party, is no different than playing a hero, other than the limits the PC will take.
Exactly this. Evil characters still have wants and goals. All that changes is what acts they might do to achieve their goals, and what they might not be willing to sacrifice
Yup. Had a wizard i was playing once that started the campaign neutral and ended up evil on accident because of an offhand comment that i was later informed by the DM had led me to changing alignment without me knowing or even changing how i was playing. I'd told another player when we were capturing cultists and trying to reverse engineer their ritual to see what they wanted to accomplish that "no knowledge should be too forbidden to learn." Led me on a parallel quest to try and divine all of the secrets of magic at almost any cost.
I feel the light novel/anime "Overlord " is a good example of evil done right. Everyone except a few characters in Nazarick was evil but their leader, Ainz, prioritized protecting his followers who he saw as his family while trying to get back home. Taking over the world was those followers misinterpreting what he said and he had to play along so that they won't realize he's not the evil genius they think he is and turn on him.
Wouldn't that be unlawful though? As in, they are breaking laws. Lawful evil is the corrupt Judge, or the contract-devil, or the guy that bulldozes an orphanage because he legally purchased the land after they couldn't pay taxes. Lawful evil follows the law of the land, or at least, their land. Devils aren't gonna break the devil rules (Like forging your name on the contract), the judge isn't gonna do something that'll get him defrocked, and the orphan dozer was in the legal right. The self-righteous Inquisitor from the kingdom next door MIGHT burn a witch in a country where the magical arts are quite legal, but he's still following the law of HIS land. You'd have to invent some pretty specific codes for your criminals to follow if they're gonna be Lawful.
@@noanswer1864 Yeah, but that’s what will make it fun as well as make sure it doesn’t delve into Chaotic Stupid. The challenge of trying to stay within your code will make for good RP moments.
When I think of villians, I recall a quote fromC. S. Lewis: “Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies." And from Jojo part 6 from Whether report said to his brother: "The worst kind of evil are the ones who don't know they are evil." And to said, if a villian should be simple vs complex, while complex can be interesting with their motivation, they may do evil thing but there was a chance to find another opinion, but didn't take either time, or personally, or, lack of knowledge. Then there is a horror to those who are just simply evil because they want to and not ashamed of it. How both of these villian on how generally depend on the story they are put in.
Personally, I think Chaotic Neutral or Evil can be fun, but you have to consider the party in all cases and you should almost certainly avoid leadership positions unless the party is as wild as you. Roleplaying a CN/CE fratboy/sorority sister gang would be pretty fun, if you had the right homies for it.
Wait, that last idea actually sounds kind of sick. You could start at the very beginning of the band, entering the gang at the same time, and growing a bit separated from each others, before properly meeting up and starting to know each other better. You’d get to learn what they can do, see them do it, and respect them, while proving yourself and maybe taking a jab at a common enemy like that. God that sounds sick. I’ll keep the idea in mind
Yeah the party compliment is something you need to consider. I tried playing a CE Rogue who was at least smart about it. Sadly I couldn't really get into the CE aspect of it because she always wound up as ether leader or No. 2 for simple dint of actually being intelligent. And this was really Meta leaking through because a lot of people I played with were new and didn't know how to really advance a story until I started pushing them forward by having her pull them in a direction. 'Chaotic Stupid' really does have a counterpart in 'Good is Dumb' when your CE alignment soft changes to Lawful neutral because your character is intelligent enough to actually push forward with a goal while everyone else, apart from being ripoffs or inspired by tropes, just stands around being cool but the player not really having a direction beyond the trope archetype. Trying to get up to CE shenanigans is hard when your character is the one riding herd to push the party in ANY direction AT ALL or they just stand there staring at each other going 'what now?' On the plus side it paid into her growing story of becoming a rising noble. Shame I couldn't continue the story given every group she was in is broken up and she's 'too advanced' to get a continuation.
I played a character in an evil campaign composed of: -a brutal paladin of a Blood God(doesn't care about slaughter, actually revels in it) -a goofy necromancer that's more going with the flow, and was the idiot token character of the party. -a femme fatale type assassin half-elfw who works for money. -a mage who joined an evil cult for power because he wants to overthrow the gods as he sees them as the ultimate obstacles to his goal of absolute knowledge(ironic, given the cult that gives his mage powers draws their power from the God of Magic). I was playing the mage. The closest to True Neutral you could get out of the 4, and only working with the evil party out of convenience. He didn't care about who would die on his path, all that mattered was the end result.
My favorite alignment for villains is "Lawful Evil" pretty much for all the reasons described in the video, because they understand to restrain themselves in their evil desires. Plus they might be able to strike a balance with doing good. They desire money and power, but realize that just going full evil will provide them with neither. Two good paths to take are also the whole "the path to hell is paved with good intentions" and "villains are the heroes of their own story", so they might genuinely believe they are doing good, maybe they even have their heart in the right place, or maybe they ate up their own propaganda. Some might be naive or too prideful, thinking they can control this evil power that has corrupted others because they believe they have figured it out. Maybe they are the heroes to one group of people but the villains to another, maybe they even realize what they are doing is wrong in some way but they do it anyway because not doing it would be worse for the things they prioritize.
My lawful evil wizard is polite, helpfull and always seek the best outcome. But he seeks to become a lich and will stop at nothing to get it. Its fun to see the faces of your fellow players when they find out that you drained the child dry because you needed virgin blood for the ritual. I hate smite.
Until I started playing evil characters i never knew that people had such a hard time doing it without being disruptive to the table. I played a lawful evil warlock of the undead subclass in a dnd campaign a while ago. She was born into a hedonistic cult what worshipped a dracolich, but the current leader was selecting who was allowed to make a pact with Dracolich through nepotism instead of duty. When the patron made a pact with my character of their own volition the cult leader exiled her from the sanctuary. She could here whispers from her patron and knew that they'd strayed from the path her family was supposed to be on. She met the rest of the party some time later while working as a mercenary. The overall goal of the campaign was to stop the revival of the God tharizdun. She was the party face and during the campaign brokered most of the deals and handled most of the social heavy lifting. She also made all of the hard decisions regarding moral decisions. And most of the party went along with what she said because it seemed necessary at the time. Like, we'd get to a town and I'd be captured by tharizduns cult and she'd say "Destroy everything, kill everyone." Because she got suicide bombed by a child once. She'd execute people or summon monsters into rooms to slaughter npcs while they slept, all to further the party's goals. No one even knew she was evil until we were given a literal mountain of gold and platinum by Bahamut and she bought and rebuilt a ransacked mining city. Turning it into a hedonistic utopia and home for her self created branch of her patron's cult with absolute and dragonic laws if you were to slight people.
I think it's missing the main point: evil is egotistical. Evil people only think about themselves or their small community. If they have to go against the law or other people, so be it. Imagine the drug lord who sells a substance that will ultimately end most people's lifes, but he also build soccer fields and provide public lightning for his community (and they love him for it). Think about the boss who pushes their employees to work long extra hours, without worrying about their mental health, just to get a promotion. Think about the scammer who thinks that "if you're stupid, you deserve to be taken advantage of". I live in Latin America and this is everyday life here. You need to keep everyone in check because, if you let them, they will take advantage of you somehow. Guaranteed.
Family makes an excellent motivator for an evil character. One of the few evil PC I've ever played was a necromancer trying to amass enough magical powers to bring back her family as formidable undead that would never, *ever* be taken away from her again.
7:37 Later on, he returns as a full on villain, working with a Dark Elf on a plan to unleash, of course, goblins. He attacks Goblin Slayer and the fight ends with him gutted like a fish.
How do you know Literature Devil is really credible with this topic? He released an absolute banger of a video, in a night where i have to wake up at 4 AM on the next day, at exactly 11 PM! Now i'll be forced to continue watching tomorrow instead! Such EVIL! 🤣
Very good Advise on how to dodge evil stupid... and to note that both heroes and villains have to be somewhat driven. Villains more so because that are blinded by their goal. This is the meat I want, that i dint know i was starving for!
Player: "I seduce the dragon! Natural 20!" DM: "A smile spreads on the dragon's face, as a thorny double-decker bus sized penis slowly extends your way out of its cloaca." Player: "Wait! Wait! Wait! Wait! Wait! No! No! No! No! No! No! 😱"
Okay, hear me out. Team motivation: the party works for the typical BBEG. Burning or threatening villages destroys the village, but nets a pay out from the boss. Do whatever, but never cross the boss. Ignore the boss, and you'll remember why he's the BIG bad evil guy and you're just the help. Rise through the ranks until you have to face a full party of heroes later and prove your worth to the boss. It keeps people in line if the boss says "Don't do that, stupid." Just an idea.
Have to give props to the use of "The Gamers" for the overly horny bard reference. That movie and its sequel are the best D&D movies I've ever seen. The only movies that actually show any semblance of what it's actually like to play the game.
Great video! This goes a lot deeper into the Acts of Evil than I do when I try to explain the Morality Chart to my friends, but here is my simplified version: -Lawful: You follow "the law". This can be: A strict moral code, the law of the land, the rules of your god, etc. The point is that you are true to following that set of rules. They can overlap, such as the rules of a god matching some of the law of the land, but in a conflict you know which set you prioritize. This does not deny the option of making a contradictory choice, but it would assumedly have a good reason and with an understanding of potential consequences for doing so. Note: I often point out that pop-fiction superheroes are typically NOT really a Lawful person; vigilantism is a crime regardless of the reason. So I consider them Neutral or Chaotic at best. -Chaotic: You follow "your whims". This can be harder to roleplay believably, but the simple thing is that it never denies you the chance to make a lawful choice. However, that means you run the risk of acting overly lawful (whether or not any characters are witness to your actions.) -Good: You do things for, or are driven by, selfless reasons. Simple as that. You don't HAVE to save every kitten or take every blow for your teammate (even if you're a Paladin!), but you would still make actions and decisions based on how to improve others lives (and not necessarily at a cost to your own, since a smart person KNOWS they can't continue to help people if they are dead or disabled in some way. Unless that is the best option at the time, I guess). Note: This means a lawful good person could carry out a murder, but is unlikely to be unfazed by doing something they typically disagree with. A good example is Classic Batman, who would certainly kill villains in various situations for the greater good or whatever. (Same does apply to Modern Batman, but they try to have him mostly avoid it. Unless you play Arkham City, where many of his takedowns are unquestionably lethal...) -Evil: You do things for, or are driven by, selfish reasons. Simple as that. You don't HAVE to kick every puppy or kill every hobo, especially since it should be assumed your character ISN'T a blatant idiot (unless they are actually that stupid, I guess). Note: For example my own evil character is driven not by any particular evil act or even goal (her goal is to serve her goddess, keeping the dead dead and returning to the grave those that are raised), but instead is self-serving. She is totally happy to help out the town in need if it will get her money, loot, power, etc. in the process. One of my favorite moments was when she and her companions had the opportunity to save a bunch of miners from being turned into Ratkin by an invading group of Ratkin... and in the end they managed to barter with both to get good loot and then let the Ratkin turn the miners. We later helped them reclaim the Ratkin's original home in exchange for more rewards; again, not because we wanted to improve their lives, but because doing so benefited us. -Neutral: Some awkward in-between realm of morality. You're not quite enough of one side or another to really be expected to act one way or the other. (In any combination, Neutral can be difficult to play well, since if you constantly lean one way, then you aren't really "neutral". Of course, a situation or chain of situations may just have the best options lean one way and that's not really avoidable without making your character into an idiot. Unless they are.) An especially important note: Good AND Evil characters can do all of the exact same actions in a situation. The difference is WHY they do it. Much the same applies to Lawful/Chaotic, but I feel that is more obvious to people.
I would be curious if a D&D campaign would be entertaining in Drew Hayes' Villains Code series Where they walk outside the laws of governments and societies but they have AN unity, as they can't take over the world and have allies of sorts and a place to lay their heads and even retire One notable quote being "This is a Guild of Villains, not monsters"
One example of the "Token Evil Teammate" that I think is worth looking at is Alarak from StarCraft II. Say what you will about SC2's writing as a whole, the Tal'Darim's newest Highlord has a clear motivation that gives him a reason to work with the heroes, even as he continues acting like an evil overlord while working with the good guys. He's power hungry, prefers direct and often violent solutions to problems, and loathes weakness of any kind. That being said, Alarak also always keeps his word, even if he does tend to get into exact words and semantics a lot. There's definitely a lot of potential inspiration here if you want to play a Lawful Evil character.
I figured this thing out from a pathfinder inspired video game. Pretty much I made two characters who were supposed to be mercenaries with similar backgrounds, and apart of the same mercenary company. One was chaotic good, and avoided "unnecessary" violence and killings. She needed money for her father's clinic which is a bit ironic in a way. The other I thought would be chaotic neutral. She needed expensive medicine for her family, and simply didn't care about the effects of her actions. Then there's an defining event where the government wants to finally clean up the area. The chaotic good one joins in because it benefits most people including the clinic. The "chaotic neutral" sabotages everyone for the local crime boss, and gets a deal on smuggling drugs(medicine) along with decent pay. It took me a lot longer then I did to realize that wasn't a neutral type of person. The person is too obsessed with keeping her family, but other then that she's perfectly sane. No one knew she was just going to betray everyone because she was there for similar reasons to everyone else.
I've never played a "villain campaign" but I have played some evil characters in a normal campaign, which also ends up falling into a lot of these same things. Trying to play an evil character in a normal campaign and just making them immediately face level bad guy who everyone hates and will immediately want you out will never work. But an aggressive twisted hero with a reason for their cruel mindset who still sees their party as allies (even if it's just to reach their goal), going so far as to rescue them while still maintaining their far from good nature, will. The biggest thing is teamwork. You can't play an evil character and be against the party (at least not immediately, built up betrayals either out of scheming from the start or a breaking point can be amazing), it will never work. But an evil character who's goals align with the good party, both sides begrudgingly accepting because it's beneficial, will.
My evil character was a Paladin that hated monsters. If it was in the monster manual and wasn’t in the NPC section or a good alignment, he’d kill it and revel in the carnage. He was the type to see that the goblins he just slain had children that are now orphaned and think “I missed some.” He was fun.
I've played with the idea of an evil character doing good things not because it's the right thing to do but because it benefits them; when everyone loves you it's easier to get what you want. Pragmatic, charasmatic, intelligent and he plays the long game
RU-vid timing... "For a group of villans to work they need-" **RU-vid inserts commercial for L'Oréal hair products** I hate how aggressive commercials are today, but occasionally they do give me gems like these.
"Strong motivation and pragmatism." Just tossing in the notorious example of Nox from Wakfu here, because someone will, inevitably. The guy literally has no qualms about all of his evil acts because he knows he will either a) succeed and undo everything in the process or b) destroy the entire world, in which case why even care? Also, shame on you for using Johnny Depp as Sweeney Todd. Ray Winstone was the superior murderous barber by a fair margin. His Sweeney Todd tempts Missus Lovett into joining in the murder, for one thing, rather than the other way around.
I like the usage of Nox because you’re right, it’s a good exemple of a pragmatic villain that won’t back down. And he has a great motivation for it too, almost as if it was a well written character… Huh.
If I remember correctly, Nox did what he did only because he thought that when he turns back in time none of the stuff he did will have occurred (option a). I don't remember him thinking of option b
@@ulaznar you are absolutely correct. The loss of his family was so heartbreaking to him that he could not move on. Before that, Nox was a respected individual. However, after discovering the existance of the Eliacube, he decided that he’ll seize it, and use its power to create a machine able to go back in time, but needing a unholy amount of energy to do so. With his calculations, only one place needed to be sacrificed, so that he could travel back in time, prevent the loss of his family, and thus the decent into hell he had. But a misscalculation made so that he only travelled back a few minutes back. He never ever considered option b, because he was sure it’d win. And upon realising this, he beats up the protagonist, and goes off screen, the episode ending with his mask half buried.
@@solarstorm5242 Since we are talking about Nox. Can we agree that Wakfu peaked in the first season? Or at least that no other antagonist was even close to Nox in terms of writing?
You can also have certain characters who are a ring leader. Where their motivation is the strongest, and the others are a bit flimsy, but the others of the party have been charmed (both literally or magically) or feel deep loyalty under the one ring leader. Such as a group of bandits or thieves. And if anyone steps out of line too much or going too gun hoe, the line gets cut.
What I got from this is, that villains are just heroes without moral restraints. Thank you, you put into words what I have noticed as a pattern in stories but I did not know how to accurately describe the pattern.
this is very well done. Great job with this video! this is also really important to look at when creating the BBEG, bring in villains from the parties background and get them to align to take down the party
One of my favorite forms of Evil is when you put limits and rules to dictate their cruelty and actions. My Cleric for a Faerunian Game is a Lawful Evil/Lawful Neutral Cleric of Order, who freely gave over five hundred gold to help an entire boat of tiefling refugees fleeing to Baldur's Gate, who tried to save the merchant npc who was selling cursed rings after she learned he was under the influence of an Illithid Tadpole and couldn't determine his guilt, and who protected a man accused of necromancy and cursing his wife to ensure fair trial. She is also the one who caved a bandit's chest in with her mace who had already surrendered, who writes down everyone's name on a list, and who will simply kill you so that your immortal soul is conscripted into the armies of Averus for the Blood War. Meanwhile she is surrounded by "Good" and "Neutral" party members who murdered every illithid infected person they met since they let the imaginary fear of them being contagious get to them, that was willing to use the merchant as bait for a small green dragon, and who accused my cleric of not upholding her vows when she literally went down the road to solo like eight goblins and a huge warg to help the city guard and they stayed with the caravan. (This isn't to accuse or belittle my party mind), simply pointing out the fun of how the Lawful Evil Cleric is willing to do more good and endanger herself for others first and foremost. And whose greatest flaw is that she believes redemption is impossible for the living.
Good advice on C/E. You really need to have the DM give you that hook (i.e. revenge as mentioned in the video) to have such a character stay in the game. This is why I generally go with L/E. Lawful Evil works inside of the rules, right up till the moment that an NPC shows weakness and your Paladin turns those same rules on the hapless Burgomaster in a moment of cruelty that gave the Cleric PTSD. If you can't pull a more plot-related, "I love this world so much that I will only allow it do die right before I do" (like in Lucifer and Biscuit Hammer); L/E motivation can even be as simple as he/she (the party member who is most tied to the main plot) is "mine" (like Greed from Full Metal Alchemist), and "I'll kill anybody who threatens my people".
I believe that the most basic problem of "evil" campaigns is that the players seems to understand poorly what the hell its even mean - "evil". In D&D5 "Evil" suppose to mean that your character is egoistic, his goals are not driven by wish to achieve any kind of "greater good" for those around them, it means that your character would rather sacrifice someone's safety or property to his own benefit. Basically - good character rather sacrifice himself for others, when evil character rather sacrifice others for whatever the heck he wants. It means that actually evil character not only isn't suppose to do some weird anarchy stuff, but even can appear as good character at first. They can save innocents, but not because they are innocent - because it is a way to gain some trust and funds. They can toss a coin to hobo, but not because they feel its right - because they need info. Thats kinda even disturbing, for some reasons many people around think that evil character suppose to just roll around, stealing and killing stuff, and not only players - Game masters too. It just feels unfair to me, kind of.
Part of the issue is that D&D has a quasi-karma alignment system, in which characters are "evil" for evil's sake. In fact the alignments are almost religions, to a greater or lesser extent depending on the version. The evil character is not "villainous" so much as he has accepted the philosophy/dogma of neutral evil. Therefore, the evil character isn't "pragmatic" but views evil acts has being "meritorious works" in their quasi-religion. Therefore, burning down villages, kicking a dog, stealing from the party, and so on aren't things the evil D&D character does to accomplish their goals, they good works in the evil character's bizarro-world philosophy.
One of my favorite character (was pathfinder and not D&D) Was in an evil Campaign. He was an adorable little Oracle that wanted to start a Cult to a Lovecraftian horror from between the planes who gave him his powers. Despite being evil he was super polite and nice to everyone, even doing good deeds quite often in order to spread the word. In the end despite being nice and talking like he was naive child, he was completely willing to go along with all the horrible stuff the others were doing. It was hilarious. Tho the Dm was a bit creeped out at times.
After playing many Good campaigns within the same campaign world one of our half-orc characters branched off on a solo adventure to recover a legendary orc spear. He ended up not destroying the spear but using it to rally together an orc army and start conquering the countryside. Turns out playing an evil campaign is pretty similar to playing a good campaign, because it turns out that human villages have little to no treasure, no big xp monsters, and the people there generally would rather pay you taxes if you protect them from other threats. And it turns out evil monsters still attack you and are the best things to fight to get treasure and xp.
Excellent commentary on how to draft a villain! You are exactly right about how to craft and develop believable evil in a character and how to differentiate an EVIL character from a GOOD character. The only piece I would elaborate on would be differentiation between CHAOTIC and LAWFUL, as chaotic stupid is usually in reference to the chaotic evil alignment specifically. All evil characters have their obsessive motivation, but how willing are they to buck societal norms to do it sets apart the Lex Luthor from Lobo and the Joker.
I love the advice here, when I was dming I would tell players, if you just want to act in your own best interests in a pragmatic fashion be neutral. That's a totally fine way to play but if you're going to have some alignment, play that alignment with consequences of some kind. Not necessarily costs but make your alignment choice consequential.
I wasn't expecting this video from you, LitDevil, but you hit the nail exactly on my own perspective when it comes to playing evil characters in D&D - they're people. I myself am currently playing two evil characters in Pathfinder - on Chaotic Evil cleric of Dagon and one Lawful Evil Assassin of the Red Mantis guild. The Evil cleric is an aquatic Tiefling who believes herself to be the child of the demon lord Dagon and a powerful witch who lives by the sea. She was raised to view the world as a food chain - and one had best climb to the top of that food chain if they want to survive. Further, she is pursuing power and influence as a pirate lord for the sake of her motivation: loyalty to family. She wants to find whatever purpose her demonic father had intended when he made a pact with her mother, and she wants to demonstrate her love for her mother by becoming a powerful and influential figure in the world using her dark magic. Despite the necromancy and the demon summoning, I try to stress the character's humanity - she has people she cares about, goals and motivation, and a mortal mother she would protect with her life. She is manipulative and pragmatic despite her Chaotic alignment, because the chaos of her alignment is her complete lack of hesitation to do whatever she feels is necessary at any given time and representing her instinctive love of wielding destructive powers and inspiring fear. To be loved by such a person is a warped relationship, but she sees it as love regardless. - The Assassin is personally motivated by his profession and his dedication to Achaekek , the assassin god. The Mantis Guild is world-renowned for its incredible skills of murder and its unwillingness to kill a rightful monarch because they are viewed as divinely appointed. However, my character's local chapter of the Mantis Guild has been humiliated by a rival god's assassin cult - the god Norgorber, who is the god of secrets, poison, thieves, and serial killers. The king has favored the other guild, putting the Red Mantis chapter in a terrible position both politically and from their superiors threatening to purge them for weakness. This has led to a very fascinating situation where The Mantis Guild and "The League" are in a shadow war between assassins, with different views and philosophies of how one assassinates their target clashing with steel. The League views killing itself to be the true thrill - and they are quite indiscriminate and sadistic in their murders, ensuring the target suffers and more than willing to cause collateral damage. The Red Mantis, by contrast, considers assassination a careful and subtle form of art to which one is dedicated - to fulfill a contract to the letter, to slip in and out like a phantom, and to make every kill with purpose and skill. My assassin took it upon himself to risk his own life and step in harms way when he was contracted to aid some nobles escape a death trap, because he viewed it as his professional code of honor to do so. He plays the fool while he is disguised, but he is very competent and is very skilled in both combat and infiltration. He has found himself aiding the good-aligned nobility and characters because it will further his goal to restore the Red Mantis Guild's political connections and to gain his own influence. He isn't necessarily doing it purely for greed or power in and of itself. Those things are a means to an end for what he views as his code as a true assassin - but at the end of the day, he is a cold-hearted murderer, merely with deep convictions. Motivation, philosophy, and humanity are important aspects to both evil characters - and I try to portray those aspects as best as I can in my limited capabilities. I almost enjoy playing evil characters for those reasons in particular - because there is a certain curiosity to the balance between the human and the monstrous side of each character - how each reacts a little bit differently to the people they interact with or the dilemmas that they face.
No, in Goblin Slayer his party were promoted, the Guild Girl say it that they should prepare advancment papers for the others after the Rhae stormed out the room. (I really love Goblin Slayer, such a simple, but nice manga)
Great video! I would add that heroes tend to try to convince others to join their cause by pointing out the beneficial consequences for all should their quest succeed. A villain, on the other hand, forces others to join their mission by convincing them they have no choice through blackmail, strong-arming, or withholding critical resources the prospective ally desperately needs. A hero has compatriots who enlist by choice, a villain has minions who follow out of necessity.
Dear god. A party composed of a Chaotic Stupid Warlock, a Lawful Stupid Paladin, a murder-hobo rogue and barbarian, and that poor cleric in the corner acting as a sort of guide that gets trampled. Imagine the train wreck of a campaign.
In terms of Pure Evil - it works sometimes but if I think about it there is some motivation and definitely the scheming mentality works also very well. There is a brightly interesting example I can think of: Gilles de Rais from fate series. He is mad but he is not idiot and it is shown outright in his 1st appearance in animation. One which I do not want to spoil at all. Also his motivation is that of a broken man. As to explain: he aims to commit most evil things in most evil ways and in and of its own it is his motivation - he basically is nihilist atheist who wishes to prove lack of God by committing most atrocious sins and not be ever punished. Here is the crux - he does act in not really random manner and is actually good at keeping himself alive as well as successful, after all: it is also evil to win against supposedly 'good' heroes. Interestingly he creates a mutual friendship with serial killer who is basically 'evil stupid' and whose motivation is just being evil but without any rhyme or reason to it. It is ironic as he proves to him in a 1st minute they meet that one can be much more evil by just being a little bit more elaborate in their execution of said evil. Pure evil or Cosmic horror villains are not 'lazy writing'. Quite contrary: it is really hard to write them well, but just abandoning the idea of this trope due to a high level of difficulty is sad thing to do. It is of course much easier to write just greedy or power hungry villain, or maybe villain with a tragic past - all those are much, much easier to be made compelling and interesting, but... they're not the same thing. In a fact, given the right circumstances and setting being crushed well enough - very same characters might no longer be villains but even flawed heroes - without any change in said characters (Grimdark settings or even just dystopian settings seem to have that propensity to flip such changes). But 'pure evil' would remain evil and 'cosmic horror' would remain beyond full comprehension - that very nature is alluring. Ah, sorry for a bit of divagation, it got bit long XD Also: good expose! As always I guess?
Nice video, I'll make sure to commit it to memory when somebody wants to play in an evil campaign or an evil character. Whenever a new player in our club asks if they can play an evil character, we, the DMs and experienced players usually shut them down immediately. But we make sure to explain to them why: even experienced players can struggle to play an evil character correctly. I think, the best piece of advise to them is: never act evil towards your companions. Even if you're a complete psychopath with no emotions, if you don't feel any attachments to them, at the very least your allies are valuable resources. In fact, they are both INvaluable. A party of good people who will risk their life and limb for you without a second thought? Now that's something any villain would kill for. And maybe they already did...
Had a fun D&D evil campaign. Set up was that they all served the evil overlord. The overlord is slain by heroes and his crown stolen. Now the villains have to chase them down, get it back and whoever wears it and sits on the throne will be the next overlord. It was so much fun. Ended with the wizard nuking the whole place when the party turned on each other.
I must say I'm really digging your recent: "There's more to being a villain than just being a dick" videos (well, to paraphrase) -- I'd like to know your take on a villain like STEM from the movie 'Upgrade', as it was a very unique approach to the hero/villain dynamic, not to mention how well the movie slowly shows STEM's true nature and capabilities, slowly changing the audience's perspective of it from being something awesome, to something horrible.
To be fair though, there is some fun in villains just being dicks. I love tragic and understandable villains, but sometimes, a good ol Snidely Whiplash is just the thing the doctor ordered. I traumatized one of my friends on Kobolds for life when I ran a standalone oneshot to introduce him to tabletop ahead of a real game.
I have two ideas for evil campaign. 1. The party is a part of a thieves guild and what's beneficial for the guild is beneficial for them so it gives them incentive to be cooperative and work together. 2. More inspired by the blood war and warhammer where there is a corruptive chaotic evil force seeking to destroy everything and being evil to some degree is necessary to stop it in a Evil vs Oblivion scenario.
Great stuff. Lines up with my experiences with well done evil campaigns well. Notes to the GMs who want to do this: you need to keep the PCs' motivations in mind AT ALL TIMES, more so then normal campaigns, you CANNOT forget an evil party's motivations; their backstories should be front and center every step of the game unless you want them to go full murder hobo and start randomly pillaging whatever they happen to find nearby. Also, unlike a normal campaign, external motivators like helping a village will rarely work on evil characters - the motivators need to be personally rewarding. If you want them to help a village, that village had better be sitting on top of a diamond mine the PCs can use to get rich (assuming wealth is a motivator for them) or else the party is likely to burn everything to the ground so they can force the ex-villagers to search FOR a diamond mine under their former homes' foundations, then sell them all into slavery or massacre them if they fail to deliver. That doesn't meant that you always need to give them rewards to get them to act, though: you can absolutely use *threats* the same way as you would a normal campaign party, even forcing them to do things and work with people they otherwise wouldn't. You just need to be more careful when going this route, as if there's nothing really tying a group to the thing you're threatening, they'll just shrug and leave saying "not my problem". Even world-ending catastrophes may just cause the party to dimension hop with a wistful "good luck with that" (of course, finding the means TO dimension hop could be a good adventure in itself...). Hence why the best threats are ones that tie into the PCs motivations: a threat to destroy a castle is shrug-worthy, but if that castle happens to be a character's ancestral home that they're trying to reclaim. Also, the moment the threat is resolved, they're going to be seeking vengeance against who or whatever caused it, and likely will be betraying and murdering as many of those they were forced to work with as they dare. Another thing to keep in mind is that a lot of people enjoy evil characters for the ability to do unreserved PVP without moral reservations. Even close friends and allies will scrap in an evil campaign due to lack of morals given the right circumstances. What keeps this from getting out of hand and which keeps players from killing each other (if they're good players) is the party's goal being hampered if they do: there are fights and bickering within the Legion of Doom all the time, but they don't kill each other because they NEED each other. So you shouldn't be afraid of PVP so long as the group's motivation is solid and includes all of the PCs, and should instead prepare for it happening. Finally, try to avoid "evil vs evil" save in rare occasions. Players are playing evil characters because they want to be BAD GUYS, and that involves fighting the forces of good in some way; if they wanted to fight evil, they'd play regular characters. The only time you'll want to use another evil character as an opponent is if you're planning to have the players team up with the villain and work with/for it at the end. Or make the former antagonist a servant and pawn of the party now that it's been beaten into submission.
I'm in an ongoing villain campaign and I can say the one thing that's perfect for keeping chaotic stupid out of the story: make the characters all friends. If they actually value one another as people, they're far more likely to cooperate and not to sabotage one another. We had a couple of characters come and go who couldn't abide by that simple rule, but the core team is almost like a mostly-functional family at this point.
I'm currently playing an evil character in my friend's home-brewed PF2e campaign. He is an Investigator who is searching for a lost civilization where there is a grand archive containing knowledge about everything in the world. The party actually looks to him as a leader which is funny considering they do not know how far he is willing to go to achieve his goal. An example of that is our Cleric is currently being hunted by this campaign's version of the Raven Queen's church and has a bounty on her head, and my character has a plan to sell her to the church if she doesn't prove to be worth keeping around. His idea is that the party is essentially a toolbox filled with tools, and you replace tools that are ineffective or broken. Interesting enough is that another character in the party is evil as well so now my character is trying to make sure more people in the party support him rather than the other character. It also fits since my class (Investigator) isn't strong enough fight alone so he has to often rely on the party when it comes to combats which incentivizes my character to not alienate himself from the party unless that is his only recourse. I'm pretty sure he'll end up dying, but it has been a blast.
I’m actually the main antagonist in an upcoming DND campaign, can I just say… I’m glad I didn’t need this video, because it means I understand how villains actually work.
It is like playing GTA: 1- You can let the world burn, until a hero (cop) comes and kills you. 2- You can play the game properly, and reign upon the world. What´s better? I know that first option is fun for while. But, the second option has much greater potential, as it allow a better pay off + having fun together is much better than alone.
What we found is that the best way to do an Villain/Evil campaign is to just have the characters working for a Big Bad (We usually went with a Neutral Evil God) that can curb stomp the player if they don't complete the mission. We also mandated that that each player's character have a sense of self preservation, so no one just blew things up just because. Doing things in this way let each player have conflicting motivations while putting them aside to do the mission. The other rule was that all sex stuff would only be alluded to in a PG friendly way. IE "I grab a village girl/boy to attend to me for the night." and that's the end of it. 1:46 Image search "bard seduce dragon meme" or "bard seduce dragon jar meme" if you don't understand
I designed a campaign once where the characters started out as (basically) Gestapo officer in a magical wild west era empire. The characters happily did some pretty nasty things at first, but then were forced out of their position to join the rebels. It worked well as they were not joining the rebels for noble purposes but for self interest. Really it is just Chaotic Stupid/Stupid Evil that causes problems. And the simplest fix is having players suffer the consequences for their actions. If they go around burning villages for fun then they really do need to become public enemy number one, have the grand hero hunt them down, or just end up with no loot or magic trinkets that they want so they have to shape up.
I feel like the biggest thing to remember at any point when playing evil characters is to keep your party in mind. If your party is full of righteous do gooders, then expect to have to hide and or explain away a lot more of your actions. And most importantly don’t do anything extreme until you know your party can’t just whack you for being a terrible person or betraying them. Having “good” motivations making you do horrible things can be interesting. But even then, if you burn down a village for any justification, a good aligned party will not let that slide. Had a double character death and a character almost leave the party in two separate campaigns recently because people don’t realize that your protection by being a PC only goes so far before people can’t justify it in character anymore.
For anyone that is interested on how to write playable "villains" or evil protagonist. I have two specific games in mind that you should look up: -The Kane and Lynch duology. (Good thing Pyrocynical just talked about it.) Where you have extremely bad people that still manage to be engaging protagonists mostly because they're shown as actual humans that fuck up a lot, without taking away their responsibility in their misery. -The character of Angela in Lobotomy Corporation (Where she's the deuteragonist) and Library of Ruina where she becomes the main character. She's a much lighter take on the subject, especially compared to my first example, but she falls perfectly in-line with what was talked about in this video. She has no restrain when it comes to achieving her objective, but still grows as a person and betters through the story.
Great video. As a dungeon master of many years I've dealt with players that want to be evil, that want to play a villain. Most don't though, and I usually dissuade them from it with two pointed questions: What does your character want, and what are they NOT willing to do to get it. Because a true villain has almost no line they will not cross to get what they want, and if you just can't burn down the orphanage to frame the fire marshal who is the son of the mayor to influence an election to take over the town to raise taxes to embezzle funds to build your new technomagic death ray(For defensive uses only), then you don't want to play a villain, you just don't want to play a paladin. Try a bard.
"does a child count as a thrown weapon?" weirdly enough even something as clean cut as that has a proper answer of "it depends": if you're throwing something capable of taking action it makes a pretty massive difference whether that thing is willing or unwilling, so the goliath and gnome barbarian duo executing their special attack / favorite bar joke are going to be rolling _very_ differently from a wizard attempting to throw their uncooperative octopus familiar while working against it's light weight nonconstant form and high grapple check or a mother throwing her relatively inactive baby.
Holy hell I needed this video! I've been trying to hammer out details for some evil NPC's for my group and this...this helped a lot. Thank you SO much.
Only time I've been a villain in a roleplaying game was one my partner wrote for her friends, we had a mission to achieve, but my character, an Alien/Aliens style android had several extra sheets of paper with added information, objectives and orders, suited me perfectly. I only had villainous objectives because the people I was with took certain actions I had information about that I couldn't share. Wonderful campaign where I got to hunt her friends down methodically, letting those without violations of my orders escape without understanding why I didn't bother with them leaving them unable to save their comrades. Never felt like a bad guy because I understood the reasoning, and in context of the story was absolutely the right thing to do. People need to feel the reasons for being bad are justified. I loved this, I'm pretty autistic and don't really understand my own thoughts so having you spell (what might be!) the obvious is lovely, thank you. Very much enjoy your videos, as I feel I have at least one good story lurking somewhere in my brain, and I don't want to f it up.
4:24 Great image. I always love how your ideas flow so well from a video to the next, and most things I verbally disagree with are gone by the next episode. Good content. 10:45 This plus alignment problems plus convergent instrumental goals is why AI will kill us if we don't research AI safety :D 11:40 Here we have it. A convergent instrumental goal. I will be referring people to this video I think, after the Rober Miles one fails
Bad guys are better at teamwork, (you're basically playing the mobster) because they have experience with what not working together will yield with their plans; they just wont go into the fight charging ahead, and result in plotting and scheming more, wanting to get paid. The main point is to deduce the motivation, why you would save the princess, for instance if you are the infamous serpent race Yuan Ti, your motivation might be collecting money and information for your own campaign, and finding out, that you must save the princess of the same kingdom you wanna undermine, it would be easier to do, if they aren't on their guard and expecting a hero party to return her not an imminent attack, so you let the hero party save the princess at the longest possible route, (smuggling them around, because you deal with illicit contraband and selling drugs) while collecting the most money and information with what you could fulfill your actual mission, which is felling the kingdom, whos princess you bring back home. You might even grace the princess (and captured Hero party) with being turned into a Yuan Ti or just made drug addicts X^D It would look like a Mexican Drug Cartell Undermine the Feds mission. :P Or you could just play an renegade Yuan Ti, who accidentally killed a fellow and now has to hide from the vengeance and get by/ an former leader who lost favour with his clan, for being perceived as too weak, to regain its place etc.A really good plot would be a former hero, who got the Yuan Ti Drug introduced in a dubious brothel starting to morph into the serpent and being addicted having to hide its condition while getting more of the subtance what either kills or turns you into a serpent to find a cure or embrace your fate etc. OwO
I joined a 1-20 campaign at level 5 a couple years back. I played a cowardly halfling who was convinced that wizards were evil. In order to protect himself, he studied their texts, so he was a wizard himself. His slide into villainy was gradual. At first he was a hindrance in combat, only using a quarterstaff. Next, he would counterspell. After a while, he would use nondamaging spells. The first of my party mates to notice his slide was the cleric, after my character saved his own life by using a damaging spell. By the end of the campaign, he was a full on necromancer.
I have played a couple of evil characters in a good party before. My first was a Lawful Evil Hobgoblin Hexblade Warlock. His mission was to reassemble the broken Axe of Maglubyet to reignite the Goblinoid Host, thus giving his people purpose. His shtick was he had a Samurai Code of Honor and abhorred those who are killed in a dishonorable manner. He inevitably was killed towards the end of the campaign when he was found out, but his biggest opponent(a Bugbear Paladin) was broken when after a scuffle, the deity of the island offered a boon to the party. My character chose for the unconscious Paladin to revive his dead wife for she wasn't given the glory of a Warrior's Death. It broke both the player and the character and had to remove him from the campaign. While he was the evil character in that party, he was also the most loyal of party members, never betraying them.
