Be evil. Yes, you. Be vile, despicable evil. We already know you can and will do it! Don’t deny it! Give in!
How? Ah, yes, of course you have questions about being truly wicked.
First, however, let me share what it is like to to contemplate and create my only two evil campaigns. After all, evil need not be ignorant – in fact, at its most heinous, it can be alarmingly enlightened.
The Dawn of Evil
It began many sinister (okay, mostly not-so-sinister) ages ago, when I had some major misgivings about DM’ing my first evil D&D campaign. One of my players had really been clamoring for it, but I’ll be honest with you: we were young and I was reluctant.
D&D had always been about world-shaping heroics and inspiring good deeds, and it just felt wrong to me to play D&D and reward all things evil: crime, villains, and of course, the monsters.
Several years, later, however, I had matured to the point where I began to look at it as a more artistic and creative venture that could expand our creativity and roleplaying, much like actors who traditionally had played “good guys” occasionally mixed things up and played a villain. Take Robin Williams, for instance – a brilliant and hilarious actor and comedian who went after a psycho role once. Creative risk. Good stuff. Nothing like expanding your mind through new experiences!
And so we launched our first-ever high-level evil campaign, set in the Forgotten Realms of D&D 2nd edition. The players liked the chance to play some sort of truly vile scum of a persona, with all sorts of dark and twisted visions and dreams. They really went all out with their backgrounds and goals. One even drafted up his tower and exactly where all his clones were located in case, you know, one of him died. There were secrets some of them would only share with me, the DM, as they often involved screwing over (read: sacrificing or murdering) other members of the party. Yah, not so much 4e “go team” camaraderie as we have these days!
In this campaign, the Harpers and Zhentarim had escalated their conflict to the point where this “good mafia/bad mafia” had nearly destroyed eachother. Whole cities had been razed already. The Heartlands had been plunged into a dark age. It was dark fantasy, a la C.S. Friedman’s Coldfire Trilogy, or something like today’s Dragon Age.
So, how to unite a party of Lawful Evil, Neutral Evil and Chaotic Evil characters of very high level? How to get them to cooperate in the campaign? I made it clear a major theme of the story was for them to hunt down and finish off the last remaining Harpers and Zhentarim in power, wipe them out, and establish their own vile counterpart – their New Zhentarim organization, and thus, in time, dominate the Heartlands and the world – and planes – beyond.
Is It Really About the Evil?
Fast forward to 3rd edition, where our second “evil” campaign was born: Drow House, also set in the Realms, and mostly (though not exclusively) in the cool of the Underdark. Inspirations and comparisons included R.A. Salvatore’s Homeland, and once again, for something even more recent, Battlestar Galactica’s character and story-driven space opera.
What did I learn from my first evil campaign experience? That it was about the story and characters, not so much about being evil for the purpose of acting out evil things. Sure, we did that early on in our first campaign, just because we were young and it was something to do. But by the time Drow House came around, we were up for something more sophisticated. Something more Firefly-like, I guess, in retrospect. Sure, the crew was all thieves and even killers, but that simply doesn’t do them any justice – the characters and their stories go so much deeper and richer than that.
So that’s what Drow House evolved as – a mature campaign with evil themes and atmosphere (hey, they’re freaking drow!), but not just for the sake of being evil or doing evil acts. We’re quite proud and fond of this long-standing campaign, and is one of, if not our all-time favorite – we enjoyed it so much in 3.x that we ported it at one point into epic tier 4e to keep it going with a few new major storylines and twists. See what you can do on short notice when someone cancels and you’re not ready to play the default campaign anyway?
The simple secret? When you create, run and play in an evil campaign, remember that it’s not really about the evil – it’s there, sure, but it’s not the focus of the campaign. You’ll still be playing an RPG, it’ll still be D&D, and as such, that means it must be about the story and characters first and foremost. That’s why a campaign will last the test of time – and even editions.
Book of Vile Darkness: Themes & Arcs
And so we arrive at the inspiration for this article: this week’s preview excerpt for Robert J. Schwalb’s upcoming December release of the highly anticipated Book of Vile Darkness. Bart Carroll pulls some of my favorite DMG2-style bits out of the BoVD and generously opens our mind to the darkness within.
As I read through the excerpt, the following campaign themes all caught my eye and seized my imagination – and elicited more than just a few wicked grins:
- Conquest
- Deicide
- Destroy the World
- Evil Against Evil
- Evil Against Good
You’ll find a brief summary of each theme in the BoVD excerpt.
In my two evil campaigns, we’ve explored conquest, evil against evil, and evil against good. Which themes have you explored in your D&D games?
Finally, there is special mention in the excerpt of a juicy discussion I simply can’t wait to devour in the BoVD itself:
Campaigns featuring evil characters typically have darker themes tied to one of the three major expressions of evil:
domination, corruption, and annihilation (see Chapter 1).
So my excited and malevolent little minions, prepare yourselves, for our time is soon, very soon indeed!
Is it December 20th yet?
Kilsek