# Module for evil party?



## luckystrike23 (Jun 2, 2003)

I can't be the only one who runs a game with a predominantly evil party. We're not vile-evil, just your run of the mill Forgotten Realms evil. I'm not so much looking for a full evil adventure, more accurately I would love if someone had put together an encounter book of interesting encounters for evil adventurers, although a whole adventure could be interesting too. 

Anyone know of such a beast?


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## DaveMage (Jun 2, 2003)

AEG had some mini-modules designed for use with their "Evil" sourcebook, but the link on their website under "d20/Adventure Keep" is not working at this time.


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## Sanackranib (Jun 3, 2003)

*evil rocks*

I had a lot of fun running my cleric/mage (necromancer) through the temple of elemental evil back in 2e


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## diaglo (Jun 3, 2003)

adapt the Reverse Dungeon by WotC


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## yennico (Jun 8, 2003)

Evil can always fight other evil forces.

You can run nearly every adventure with an evil party, you only have to change the motivations to suit them for the PCs.

e.g.
An evil dragon has captured a handsome maiden.
Perhaps one of the PCs is greedy, and dragons nearly always have a hoard filled with gold, magic treasure, etc. Perhaps the maiden is a special woman, blessed by some good gods. This women certainly would make a good sacrifice to some dark gods.
Or the Pcs need a magic item out of the hoard of this dragon.... 

e.g.
If the evil party meets some bugbears they either kill the bugbears or by good diplomacy checks make the bugbears their allies which the can use a cannon fodder. 

Just my 2 cents
yennico


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## Endur (Jun 8, 2003)

Part of the problem in running an evil campaign (or running any campaign) is understanding the motivations of the characters.

Why are the characters "EVIL"?  Why aren't they "HEROES"?

Are they greedy?  Do they enjoy murder and mayhem?  Do they hate Elminister?  etc.

Once you identify the individual motivations, you can then work on a plot that might appeal to most (or hopefully all) of the party.

Tom


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## Endur (Jun 8, 2003)

*Evil Adventures (SPOILERS)*

At various points in different published modules, a party of evil NPCs is given a task to stop a party of hereoes performing a quest.

Instead of giving the evil party  the "good" quest, you can have a good party of NPCs assigned the quest and task the evil PCs to stop the good NPCs from completing their quest.

Some Examples (SPOILERS AHEAD)



Return to the Keep on the Borderlands
An Evil Party attempts to destroy the Keep where the Heroes live.


Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil
An Evil Party wishes to recover artifacts from the ruined moathouse for the Temple's rituals.

And so on.


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## Iron_Chef (Jun 8, 2003)

THREE DAYS TO KILL by John Tynes from Atlas Games; the first d20 third party published adventure. The PCs are hired to assassinate a specific target without causing too much carnage. Lots of good role-play opportunities, a colorful cast of NPCs to interact with, all in a great "party-town" (holding a festival of sinful delights!). Very nice module for any non-good PCs (esp. those with stealth skills), as it involves murder for hire and unscrupulous NPCs with sinister motives out to use them.

Lots of good ideas in this thread, too. Evil groups often battle other evil groups even more than good ones, as the evil groups clash over the same or similar goals. 

Demons and Devils hate each other, while Daemons (Yugoloths) change allegiances at the drop of a coin, playing both sides up the middle. Evil gods have many enemies... In FR, Bane hates Cyric, and both seek to destroy each other utterly to become the "Tharizdun" (One True Power of Evil) in the Realms. Loviatar and Talona have a deadly rivalry, esp. since Talona left the Dark Gods pantheon headed by Bane and defected to Shar's camp. 

Having your PCs be agents of the Zhentarim also could put them into the middle of a Banite/Cyricist faction war around Darkhold for control of that great fortress. Manshoon might need pawns to retrieve this artifact or that for his sinister researches or to work towards revenge at a later date on Fzoul for usurping his control of the Zhentarim and Zhentil Keep. Red Wizards could hire the PCs to capture some horrid monster for their sinister experiments...

If you can, get the PCs to join some larger group for wealth, prestige and protection... advancement opportunities often come only at the expense of other members of the larger group, and if the PCs aren't at the top of the pecking order (which should be the case), they get sent out on missions by their superiors.

I've found that having a rival group of NPCs that mirror the PC's own is an effective tactic, as is a group of opposed goody two shoes NPCs out to get both evil groups. You can get a lot of mileage out of this situation, with members defecting from one group to join another, forbidden Romeo & Juliet type romances, etc., and there is great satisfaction in killing a rival or one who has hounded your footsteps in the name of justice over some petty crime (such as murdering his family) that you can barely remember taking part in, lol.


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## the Jester (Jun 8, 2003)

I dunno about published adventures- although the suggestions above are cool- but how about a campaign centered around building up enough power to carve out a kingdom for the tyrannical pcs?


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## Iron_Chef (Jun 8, 2003)

the Jester said:
			
		

> *I dunno about published adventures- although the suggestions above are cool- but how about a campaign centered around building up enough power to carve out a kingdom for the tyrannical pcs? *




Taking over an existing kingdom from within (while disguising your sinister motives) might be an even better option, especially for roleplaying opportunities in an urban environment. Check out Dynasties & Demagogues by Atlas Games for a great political intrigue d20 sourcebook.


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## Anavel Gato (Jun 9, 2003)

What  I like to do is use published Good-aligned characters to fight the evil party.  Good NPC's could have been hired to put a stop to a band of surface raiding drow.  Also, an evil thing to do to players with evil characters is have them fight their good characters in a bar or in a town that the two happen to be in.  

In all published NPC's that are good are great things to drop into an adventure where the evil party is adventuring.  By published I mean books like Enemies and Allies or 1001 villians or even other adventures.  

My group recently had to fight the iconic characters who were hired by some wealty high elves to stop the Drow who had destroyed thier trade caravan.  It's always interesting...


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## David Argall (Jun 9, 2003)

*evil adventures*

You might try the Thieves Guild series, if you can find them.  The last address I have is GameLords, Ltd., 18616 Grosbeak Terrace, gaithersburg, MD 20879, and is 20 years old.

     However, the series does provide a few adventures and a host of rules and aids for running a "I want to get rich and I don't care who gets hurt" evil campaign.


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## deathwalker11 (Apr 21, 2010)

published adventures are fine provided the adventurers are payed!

i run an evil group consisting of a cannibalistic kobold druid a halfling rogue with a disturbing love of fire a violent dwarf barbarian with atrocious personal hygiene and a generically mean, greedy half elf. they have been fighting thru published campaigns for good characters the only difference has been that they executed the gnome prisoners they found in the villains dungeon and in between adventures they have spontaneously done evil actions including a cow tipping expedition resulting in 2 murders. at present they are running an adventure of my own devising where they work for a crime syndicate

perhaps my best dnd experience ever has been playing a lone evil character in a good party and actively plotting against them. 

also having played an evil character it is my experience that its best for evil characters to devise evil plots for themselves.


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## ExploderWizard (Apr 21, 2010)

A few years ago I converted X4 Master of the Desert Nomads and X5Temple of Death to 
3rd Ed. I ran it for an evil party made up of 4 goblins, 1 human and a bugbear. The adventure
was approached by the PC's as mercenaries. It worked well.


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## RangerWickett (Apr 21, 2010)

We're planning a new campaign saga for EN World, and I think this time around it'll be pretty easy to be evil if you tweak just a few things. You'd need to be smart evil, though, not the rampaging sort.


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## Crothian (Apr 21, 2010)

As most modules are just go in and kill everything and gather treasure I'm thinking "Are their any modules for good PCs?" is a better question.  

With a little work altering the motivation for the adventure though I can't see why most modules can't work for any alignment.


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## Janx (Apr 21, 2010)

Iron_Chef said:


> THREE DAYS TO KILL by John Tynes from Atlas Games; the first d20 third party published adventure. The PCs are hired to assassinate a specific target without causing too much carnage. Lots of good role-play opportunities, a colorful cast of NPCs to interact with, all in a great "party-town" (holding a festival of sinful delights!). Very nice module for any non-good PCs (esp. those with stealth skills), as it involves murder for hire and unscrupulous NPCs with sinister motives out to use them.




I hated that adventure.  But then, we we a party of good PCs, and the GM decided to run a published adventure for the first time, and he picked that, in our pre-existing campaign.  it pretty much killed the campaign.

I think, being 'good' characters, we somehow did it wrong.  Because once we got the hook, we pretty much pursued it, and missed all the good stuff.


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## Janx (Apr 21, 2010)

Endur said:


> Part of the problem in running an evil campaign (or running any campaign) is understanding the motivations of the characters.
> 
> Why are the characters "EVIL"?  Why aren't they "HEROES"?
> 
> ...




Goals are crucial.

I can't help you on a specific module, I don't use them.

Find out what the PCs want for goals.  then provide opportunities to pursue those goals.  Have a thief?  Let him see NPCs with dangling purses walking alone from bars, rich merchant houses with inadequate security, etc.

Also, read this blog entry by Juergen Hubert:
http://www.enworld.org/forum/blogs/juergen-hubert/920-path-evil.html

It has some pretty good advice on satiating the need to be evil, while maintaining some sanity in your campaign.  Versus it turning into  a PCs on the run and are killing everything constantly, rather than building up to be "real" villains.


a very long time ago, I whipped up some rules/tables for solo adventuring that I called "Thieves night out", which was basically randome encounter tables for finding opportunities on the street, running from cops, and rooftop chases.  I might be inspired to re-invent that...


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## DaveMage (Apr 21, 2010)

Wow - a thread from 2003....

Weird.


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## roguerouge (Apr 21, 2010)

Both Paizo's Second Darkness and Kingmaker APs seem perfect for an all-evil campaign.


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## Fifth Element (Apr 21, 2010)

Most modules revolve around murdering creatures and taking their stuff. That's fairly evil by itself.


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## Endur (Feb 5, 2011)

DaveMage said:


> Wow - a thread from 2003....




Its kind of funny that this thread was resurrected.  I actually gmed an evil campaign (party of all drow) back then.

I think that campaign was even inspired by this thread.

The name of the campaign was "House Millithor in the City of the Spider Queen."  It was a Forgotton Realms campaign in the play by post section of EN World.  The characters were members of House Millithor from the Menzoberanzan boxed set (the noble house for PCs in the boxed set) and they were playing through the WOTC City of the Spider Queen Module.

The characters went most of the way through the module, until half the party was slain by a pair of 20 HD Balors.


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## kitsune9 (Feb 6, 2011)

Regular adventures are easy to be played by an evil group, but you have to change the motivations to suit evil characters.

Here's some generic motivations to try on your group:

1. Their master tells them so. For groups that belong to a greater organization, their master or liege tells them to do X. The option of failure is not accepted. This opening could be quite railroady, but it works when the PC's are just the "hired minions".

2. The evil threat is a rivalry to the PC's own plans. The PC's have plans to do X, Y, Z in the region. However, their spies come in and tell them that there is this other group that is setting up shop. The evil PC's know that they can't afford the attention of this other sloppy group so they are going to go shut it down.

3. The villain has something our evil PC's want such as a relic of power or an artifact. The PC's are engaged in a campaign-wide plan of collecting items that will grant them ultimate power, either for themselves or for the master they serve. They learn that this other group has the item and they need and will get it.

4. The PC's actually want to recruit the lead villain to their side, but needs to convince the villain that his current plans suck. The PC's will go in with a show of strength and force, waste the entire villain's plans to ruin and at the end, attempt to recruit him to their side. Whether the DM wants to make that a possibility is up to him.


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## Endur (Feb 6, 2011)

kitsune9 said:


> 1. Their master tells them so. For groups that belong to a greater organization, their master or liege tells them to do X. The option of failure is not accepted. This opening could be quite railroady, but it works when the PC's are just the "hired minions".




One of the problems I ran into was the "evil mastermind" problem.  How does a Player play an evil mastermind?  

The Player may not know the campaign world as well as the villain would know it.

Suppose you are role-playing the Joker in the beginning of the movie "The Dark Knight."  Can you plan out that entire bank robbery?  Do you know which bank to rob, which henchmen can be effective at which tasks?  

If you decide that the mastermind is too hard for a Player to play, then you are left with the NPC mastermind under #1 above.   And the NPC mastermind can be too much of a railroad, leaving the players to feel like they have no options.

I'm curious how others have handled the evil mastermind problem.


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## smetzger (Feb 6, 2011)

Check out this blog of an evil D&D campaign for some ideas...
The Assassins


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## Sorrowdusk (Feb 6, 2011)

deathwalker11 said:


> published adventures are fine provided the adventurers are payed!




Snowy Little Village Mayor: "You've saved us-we are in your debt. You have our grattitude."

Stereotypical 'Evil' Party: "Grattitude- where's the GOLD?!"

Snowy Little Village Mayor: "But...the town is... poor"
CE Wizard: "The town is FLAMMABLE!" }:-(
NE Rogue: "So, ya poor? Then fork ova coppers-er else." }:-/
LE Fighter: *pulls out battle axe* "Pay us in firewood." }

Stereotypical 'Evil' Party: *laughter*


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## kitsune9 (Feb 6, 2011)

Endur said:


> One of the problems I ran into was the "evil mastermind" problem.  How does a Player play an evil mastermind?
> 
> The Player may not know the campaign world as well as the villain would know it.




You bring up a really good point Endur. It's one that I've been thinking about too since my next campaign is supposed to be a Reverse Dungeon Evil campaign. 

So far my ideas is come up a Clue method--pick the weapon, pick the suspect, and pick the location in order to make the plan work. So the players who want to become masterminds in their own right need a few things--money, henchmen, and a base of operations. So any player who tells me that they want to become the supreme lord of X or want to ultimately destroy the Temple of Good, or so on, I will automatically feed this information to them in that they need to acquire serious gold, need to hire the muscle, and need to establish a base of operations. Those are at least three adventures to get them started and focused.

Now, once they get things going, then we enter into the problem phase. The minions need X amount of resources in order to accomplish a goal our villain PC gives them. This then becomes an adventure in of itself.  Say for example, that the evil PC's realize that in order to destroy the Temple of Good, they need to burrow to an artifact chamber that will aid them. Unfortunately there is not enough minions to make the work go faster than a snail pace, so the PC's should reasonable conclude that they need slaves. How do you set up a slave ring or acquire slaves? This is another adventure(s). Then the plan is in full swing to start digging; however the next adventure is that because of the slaves, good-aligned adventurers come calling and the evil PC's have to deal with them. Also, they get intelligence that there is a village that is rallying good-aligned heroes to send party after party to the evil PC's so that's another adventure--sacking the village. And so on....

Let the PC's plan the details, but the problems must be dealt with in order for their plan to succeed.


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## Scott DeWar (Feb 6, 2011)

or how about this:

Snowy Little Village Mayor: "You've saved us-we are in your debt. You have our grattitude."

Stereotypical 'Evil' Party: "Grattitude- where's the GOLD?!"

Snowy Little Village Mayor: "But...the town is... poor"

LE fighter: then your fired. i am the new Mayor.
to NE Rogue: need some practice? He is all yours.
To the CE wizard What kind of expiraments did you want to try?


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## amerigoV (Feb 6, 2011)

Old skoole Tomb of Horrors. 'Cuz Acererak does not discriminate based on alignment.


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## Alzrius (Feb 6, 2011)

Sorrowdusk said:


> Snowy Little Village Mayor: "But...the town is... poor"
> CE Wizard: "The town is FLAMMABLE!" }:-(




Been reading Oglaf, have you?


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## Aberzanzorax (Feb 6, 2011)

I'll echo the suggestions for the Kingmaker adventure path.

What I've seen regarding evil adventuring is that evil characters are often more proactive about what they want to do than good characters.

So the sandboxy style of that path, I think, would be perfect.



I also think a lot of adventures in general have "problems" for good characters that are not present for evil ones. Like, I'll pay you this money up front if you save x...evil characters take the money and leave. Or good characters go to a noble's house and don't steal all the silverware, because they just wouldn't.


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## Alexander123 (Feb 6, 2011)

I always play an evil character and the key is knowing their motivations.

Usually evil characters will be motivated by wealth, power etc. so you can design an adventure around that.

I do agree that evil characters are more proactive than good characters.


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## nedjer (Feb 6, 2011)

RangerWickett said:


> We're planning a new campaign saga for EN World, and I think this time around it'll be pretty easy to be evil if you tweak just a few things. You'd need to be smart evil, though, not the rampaging sort.





Just discovered how geriatric this thread is


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## Scott DeWar (Feb 6, 2011)

weere you looking for an edition war? I can point you in that direction.


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## Psychotic Jim (Feb 7, 2011)

The 2e Planescape campaign setting actually had a few modules that could be used for evil parties, fitting given its morally gray and convoluted nature.  _In the Abyss_ involved a plot to retrieve a lost Doomguard planar warship for the characters' own purposes (or those of their factions).  The adventure anthology _Well of Worlds_ had a few in it, one of which I most remember running involved delivering a love letter from a cornugon (baaetezu/devil) to a succubus (tanarri/demon).  I recall having fun with that one, when i ran it back in the day the quest managed to unite a Neutral Evil priest of Loviatar and a Lawful Good dwarven, Harmonium paladin-wannabe into working together to undertake the quest. Fun times.


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## Scott DeWar (Feb 8, 2011)

I have been thinking on this. If you were to take Labyrinth of madness and modify ot so the denizens within were to become allies, instead of contenders, that could become quite the campaign.


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