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Elisyum
Looking around
(1/30/03 4:44:49 am)
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Evil in Hommlet
My players are just about to start the return to the temple of elemental evil, but there's a small hitch. they're an evil party. sort of anyway, their alignment is evil. but not chaotic evil. they're smart about it. they don't run around and kill everyone for fun.
There are places in Hommlet where "detect evil" spells are used (i think that a paladin uses one before the PC's can get into see rufus & burne). I'm not sure if this will create any major problems but I was wondering what people's experience's were with his kind of thing.
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Kylearanon
Here for a while
(1/30/03 5:13:23 am)
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Evil in Hommlet
I donīt think, that it would be smart for the group to enter the village all together, for one thing. Normally they might not be recognized as evil by most. But at least Xaod will discover that fact rather quickly and even if he ignores the occassional evil aura, he surely wouldnīt do so when a whole bunch of evil beings arrive. In fact, he might see a connection between them and his quest and going to put his sword to work  .
Apart from that I donīt see major problems for them, depending on their demeanor. Itīs still a sleepy little village.
What is the group about to do with the temple, anyway? Wouldnīt they most likely further the cults goals once they know about it ? 
Kyle
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Siobharek 
Still here? Wow.
(1/30/03 5:34:31 am)
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Re: Evil in Hommlet
Nope. If the world goes away, all the fun of being evil goes, too.
As to the PCs experiencing difficulties because they're evil? Fine! That'll teach your players. Especially when they try and get help later on from some of the major temples in Verbobonc: "Please, mr. High Priest of St. Cuthbert, sir. Would you help us...?"
Siobharek
...it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing. |
 Infiniti2000
Here to stay
(1/30/03 7:01:26 am)
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ezSupporter
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Re: Evil in Hommlet
IMO, no offense intended, an evil campaign is doomed to failure. Either the PC's will act like a good party (defeating the ToAC) or they will have to be spoon fed motivation for continuing the adventure. The other alternative is to not defeat the ToAC, but join it, in which case the world is doomed. I suggest throwing in some Helms of Alignment Change.
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deafdungeonmasterRIT
Here to stay
(1/30/03 10:56:28 am)
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Whoa..
You guys are missing the points!!
Let the party take part of the campaign where they want to seek the greater tresure and the opportunity to control the world by blackmailing the world to do its deeds! Their biggest competition just happens to be doomdreamers and EEE. In this respect, they are more likely to survive the temple campaign and they will have MUCH easier time to work with Water Temple to attack the Fire Temple. They can work with Tarren easier as well. There are benefits, too. Alot of benefits. In case, if Hedrack and like recongized that they are evil party members. Wouldn't Hedrack want to enlist them to his cause? I mean, the Triad will want those party to disrupt their temples in order to provide the "reality" check, demonstrating the weakness of the temple. The only hitch is.. how can they interact with Varachan? Varachan will probably had to work with them, given that he have no choices.
Beside, instead of Xoad working with them, replace Xoad with Chat. Have Xoad assemble the role of Chat instead, attacking them where they least expected! I think that will be an interesting twist to the game!
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Siobharek
Still here? Wow.
(1/30/03 11:24:37 am)
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Re: Whoa..
DeafDM's right. I let myself be blinded by (righteous) disapproval of evil campaigns. Sorry 'bout that. 
Siobharek
...it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing. |
Infiniti2000
Here to stay
(1/30/03 11:38:52 am)
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ezSupporter
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Re: Whoa..
I still don't think so. What deafdm suggests is that the evil party work within the ToAC. That's all well and good, so to speak, but it still leads to the success in freeing Tharizdun. End of World.
I suppose a case may be made such that the party works its way up in the ranks of the cult, eventually stumbling upon the truth and purpose behind the ToAC. At that point, they will need to (a) fight the temple for their very survival, essentially becoming the "good" guys, (b) contact the real good guys and have them fight the temple, or (c) go "aw, what the heck, let's see if we can free the bastage." What happens when the fighter PC decides to take a level of cleric and join, say, the fire temple and worship EEE? That ensures failure because that PC will likely not turn his back as Varachan did. If no one becomes a cleric of EEE/Tharizdun, they their advancement in the ranks is limited. Option (c) above would be a lot of fun, but a lot of work for the DM. He would need to create some good guys to assault the temple, essentially turning RttToEE into Reverse Dungeon; which was a lot of fun.
In the end, though, it's all about fun. And, no doubt such a story line would generate a lot of RP fun if it were handled properly by the DM and players. It's a rare group, in my experience, who could do so, however. Best of luck.
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Thrommel
Can't leave now (mod)
(1/30/03 11:40:49 am)
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Re: Whoa..
Just to follow up on DeafDM's point, here's my idea for running a lawful evil party through RttToEE. (A party of Lolth-worshipping drow would be ideal candidates.)
The party gets recruited by the cult and go to investigate the moathouse. You change the priests there to priests of St. Cuthbert, but things stay pretty much the same. (Festrath as a now insane cleric of St. Cuthbert is a cool twist, IMO.) One important modification is to get rid of the Journal of Geynor Ton which gives away most of the Tharizdun plot.
If the party is successful, they get hired to go clear the Ruined Temple. ("Hobgoblins have taken it over. They need to be persuaded to leave.")
Have the Water Temple sponsoring them and they get hired to eliminate some/all of the other Temples in the CRM. With the inside intel/support provided by the Water Temple, things should go remarkably smoothly.
About this time, the group gets taken into confidence by Hedrack, who reveals The Plan to them.
That's the curveball, and any party of decent RP'ers will see that sacrificing themselves to invoke an apocalypse is neither in their personal interests, nor those of Lolth.
From there on out, the module should run pretty standard.
I think it would be a blast.
-Thrommel, evil DM looking for an evil party. No waiting.
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smetzger
Here for a while
(1/30/03 12:24:50 pm)
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Re: Evil in Hommlet
Another option with Xaod (btw I say and he is Xoad IMC, it just flows of my tongue better). He is a Paladin on the edge in a normal campaign the PCs push him towards the good side. Perhaps he tries to join the party thinking that 'he can handle the evil temptations, besides its for the better good'. But he can't handle it and eventually loses his Paladin status.
He could even become a Blackguard.
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AshaThoth
Here for a while
(1/30/03 12:47:03 pm)
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I'm running an evil campaign, too...
...but in my case, they're the Dirty Dozen (no CE, no Good aligned PCs)
The set-up is this:
The gods become concerned over possible activity around Tharizdun's places of power and convene a council. All of them agree that this is potentially a Very Bad Thing (TM), perhaps the Worst Thing Ever (TM). They further agree that these activities require investigation... however, it's fairly obvious that overt displays of power could drive the cult underground. The question then becomes, how to proceed?
A gang of high-powered Paladin @$$holes is clearly the wrong answer -- they would be made in a New York minute and dealt with almost as quickly. High-powered evil b@$tards are even more problematic, since they could see this as an opportunity to feed their own megalomania -- not to mention the fact that they could prove difficult to control.
In the end, the gods agree that the best answer is a group of low-level evil adventurers, powerful enough to survive the mission, weak enough to be managed and when it comes right down to it, utterly disposable. To appease the good-aligned gods, the evil gods accede to putting their proxies under the temporary command of a solar archon (his name is Shaft, and he looks kinda like Samuel L. Jackson, but that's a looong story).
Each member of the team is given a mystical mark which allows Shaft to track their movements, administer punishment and which conceals their alignment when a command word if spoken. Other than that, they are free to conduct business as they see fit. Their job is to do the job. The only rule is that they are not allowed to fail.
Since the campaign started, they've tortured prisoners, executed people who've crossed them, used innocent NPCs as sacrifices to get past monsters and generally lied, cheated and stolen their way through the adventure. It's been grim, gritty and fun w/o the usual negatives of attempting to run evil characters.
Someday, I'll tell you where I plan to go after RtToEE. It's pretty freakin' wacky.
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deafdungeonmasterRIT
Here to stay
(1/30/03 1:27:47 pm)
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Alright
Siobharek, there is nothing wrong with being righteous.. especially if that is something you strongly believe in! I would not approve of people playing evil characters if they don't know how to seperate between reality and fantasy.
There is no conflict of interests. the EVIL pc are LAWFUL as you said, and what they are going against are chaotic evil cults. Think about it, if LAWFUL evil PCs can actually get along with CHAOTIC evil cults, then blood war between demons and devils should end LONGGGG times ago! That is something that we need to understand about evil along with chao, lawful (order), and neutral (individual).
The reason I brought up about Hedrack because of his policy for Survivor of the Fittest. If any parties can destroy his assassins and it is proven that those parties have no good intent to invade the temple, merely to loot, wouldn't you think Hedrack would go to neogitation table? Seriously, if I was Hedrack, I would be so damn impressed by their performance that I will offer to hire them. Of course, if the party get a bit out of control with accepting offering, that is where Varachan come in and "INTERPRET" their plans. If anyone are familar with El Ravager from Sword and Fist, that is pretty much the policy that Hedrack adopts. Whoever defeat his top ranking men should be replace with the winners.
Even if they do not listen to Varachan, the Traid will be involve. Why? Because Traid do not want ANYTHING that threaten their position! Hedrack is one threat, but he is just one and Traid knew that. If the high level party decides to part of Hedrack's party guards, then the Traid will feel threaten and even order their men to execute the PC body guards. Just think of it as a resouvior dog scene where one of the robbers turn out to be undercover cop, and that guy attachment to him is so great that he just sob. Pretty much how you can put Hedrack in that position.
Let think this way, you are lawful evil. You want glory, you want loots, but the last thing you want is a total destruction of the world, which you will be deprived of worldly goods. Even lawful good and chaotic good characters and gods will choose the lesser of two evils. That's RIGHT, the lesser of TWO EVILS! That is the point of the game. No matter what.. after you defeat Imix and prevent the escape of Big T, you will be forever recongized by GODS as among the greatest heroes ever live. Think about it, this is a god who killed more than half of original gods. He is so powerful that even evil gods tremble before him. C'mon, any party, even the evil one, will always be considered heroes if they foil the plots of EEE and doomdreamer's plans.
Beside, it never hurt to collect loots in all day's good work! 
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