Quote from: Ian Absentia;267954When I broached the notion of playing a Sabbat campaign, my fellow players told me I was crazy, and that they'd never stand for such a thing.  It struck me as odd that they seemed to want to filter out the real horror from a "horror" roleplaying game.

Strange reaction ! I ran a short campaign using the Montreal by Night source book. It was very gonzo badass vampire hysteria (I was trying to go for more horror but my players didn't help) but we laughed a lot

There is an awesome GM in the San Francisco Bay Area who runs Evil Star Trek and Evil Dark Heresy as one-shot games at conventions.    

He takes a standard Star Trek episode (any of the shows) with all its assume moral quandries and need for heroism...and then hands out the characters...and then tells them they are in the Mirror Universe.  

It gets wild and crazy and incredible fun.   Maybe not the best set up for a long term campaign, but truly excellent for 4 hours with strangers.

His new setup is Dark Heresy where you play Chaos Cultists trying thwart those nosy Inquisitors while achieving your Dark God's mission.  I am really looking forward to playing a session of that.

I played in a sweet evil campaign.  We were rebuilding an old necromancer's keep and building a city around it.  Albeit a city built around an any means necessary approach.  We had standing troops, a mercenary company, a monestary of evil monks, and a variety of peasants we'd pressed into service as citizens of our budding community.

We had a manor in Waterdeep and did some trading with many of the businesses there.  In short we were organized and had shared goals, rather than a bunch of back-stabbing rapist baby killers.  It made for a really fun time, but unfortunately our GM wasn't expecting organized evil and the game fell apart because he wanted Paranoia style gameplay.

Quote from: Idinsinuation;267992...unfortunately our GM wasn't expecting organized evil and the game fell apart because he wanted Paranoia style gameplay.

Shame on you.

!i!

Quote from: Ian Absentia;267995Shame on you.

!i!

I know right.  How dare we shoot for longevity and in depth character developement over backstabbing shenanigans.  

I once played a real scumbag private eye in Shadowrun. He was more evil in "The Shield" sense than in a Darth Vader way; more callous and opportunistic than rampant sadistic. Even so the effects were pretty devastating.

Within the three short sessions we played he got one innocent member of the party arrested just so he could collect the reward and the rest of the party killed, ironically trying to protect my character while he ran off with all the money and his lady friend.

To this day I wonder why the other players chose to stand and defend my character. They did have a chance to get away and I had made very obvious that my character wasn't to be trusted. I can only think that either they took my character sleazy behaviour as just empty posturing and that, in true Hollywood tradition, when the chips were down he could be counted on to do the right thing or, more likely, they were just spoiling for a fight and had not really been paying attention to how that game had unfolded thus far.

It was kind of fun to do as an experiement, but really it hard to see how one could run a long-term campaign this way.

I played in a very large campaign wherein during the first session one of the other players, who was a dick in RL, fucked me over in a minor way. He was a magic user. I was a thief/fighter/magic user- but I never ever used magic or thieving skills in front of any of the other PCs. So from their point of view I was just an underpowered fighter.
Our first adventure was some kind  of nautical thing. I was the third officer on the ship. All the other officers mysteriously died or vanished during the course of the voyage, and I somehow ended up as Captain, which entitled me to something like 80% of the treasure upon our return.
There was a moment as we were debarking and the other players were walking off the ship with their little bags of gold as two crew men wheeled mine away in barrows, that I almost felt guilty. Mostly I was amazed that they all just took it.
Anyway, the rude MU used his share of the loot to buy two fancy daggers. He flashed them around everywhere. Made a real big deal out of them. I stole them both when he was drunk or asleep or something, and broke into the mayor's house, killed the mayor with them and  left them on the scene with a bunch of material spell components.
Magic User guy got fingered for the crime. He was completely in the dark. I buried the hatchet with him and told I'd use my vast fortune to help him out- which I did by hiring the worst lawyer in town to defend him.
At this point, one of the other players finally clued into the fact that I was raw fucking evil. We had a confrontation. I was totally ready to kill him, but all he wanted was to be my henchman.
 It went on like that for a while, with the trial taking center stage. Eventually the other player characters finally got hep. They moved in on me- but they thought my henchmen was on their side and they ended up walking into trap. That was pretty much the end of the game. I had everyone's money and My henchman and I were the only ones left alive. I bought a sailboat and we fled the city.
I think my favorite moment was when the magic user finally realized what I was up to but somehow thought he would turn it around, not knowing that I was already prepared for his retaliation.

Quote from: Ian Absentia;267954I've never wanted to play a callously evil, randomly violent deviant -- that's not really evil, it's just sociopathic.

Good point but I have to say, it depends on how the player handles this type of character. One of my players based her character on T-Bone from Prison Break. It worked out pretty well but if the whole group was made out of such characters I think it would have been a disaster....

Regards,
David R

...just now checking back in on the thread...my day was kind of busy...

If the game had Shades of Gray I would have liked it better .

 One of the few campaigns I've ever been in where two of the players almost came to violently arguing about stuff - and I had to ride home with one of them.  There were too many players as well. Got to be annoyingly chaotic at times.  Only two players in that bunch that I stayed friends with were the friends that originally invited me to play with that group . They were later in my GURPS: TRAVELLER campaign. (a married couple)


- Ed C.

Quote from: Koltar;268036If the game had Shades of Gray I would have liked it better .

Rather than Good vs. Evil, try gaming with "socially acceptable" vs. "socially unacceptable."



I've gotten a lot of positive feedback for essentially playing subversives, visionary madmen, war criminals, etc.

They all did "bad" things, but they all had reasons they believed in.

Also, watch Vincent Price movies.  Vincent Price played a lot of great characters.  They usually weren't good, and they were almost uniformly socially unacceptable, but they made great stories.

Vincent Price said, about his characters, in a quote I can't find a source for, "I don't play monsters. I play men besieged by fate and out for revenge."

That is exactly how to have fun playing evil.  Do not play a monster.  Play a man with reason and feelings and uncertainties, who has been besieged by fate and who does not care who has to die or feel pain -- including himself -- so that he can see justice according to his standards.

Okay - yeah but Vincent Price in regular life was a pretty nice guy. He liked his fans and would sign autographs & everything.


Thats one autograph I wish I could find around here.....

- Ed C.

Are sure you're talking about evil, and not, just over the top goofiness? There is nothing particualry evil about your example. It just sounds like a too big group and character with silly name.

Quote from: Koltar;268056Okay - yeah but Vincent Price in regular life was a pretty nice guy. He liked his fans and would sign autographs & everything.


Thats one autograph I wish I could find around here.....

- Ed C.

That's why they call it acting...and role-playing.

Okay then - they were playing "Evil" but for me it was obnoxious and boring...and frustrating.


I prefer to play Good guys.


- Ed C.

Quote from: Koltar;268056Okay - yeah but Vincent Price in regular life was a pretty nice guy. He liked his fans and would sign autographs & everything.


Thats one autograph I wish I could find around here.....

- Ed C.

I do recommend being likeable in real life.  Also, if possible, try to avoid getting besieged by fate in real life.  (However, if fate decides to besiege you, I don't think you can do anything but what you're fated to do...)

But when you play a game (especially a game with any kind of violence, such as GURPS, D&D, etc.) consider the joy of playing a non-monstrous man who does monstrous things.

Let me paint you a picture in 241 words.

   Alan is a 40-year-old meth chemist.  His tragic flaw is sloppiness.  He's sloppy enough to get caught by Bob the cop.

Bob's tragic flaw is sadistic bullying.  He's a great guy otherwise -- he's devoted to every factual detail of the law, he's self-sacrificing, he drives himself harder than his subordinates -- but when it comes to the value judgment that would guide his actions, he can't tell the difference between law enforcement and sadistic violence.

Bob catches Alan and beats him to death with a police baton.  Alan takes a long time to die in great agony and humiliation.  Bob would normally get in trouble, but he's married to the District Attorney, Darlene, whose tragic flaw is ambition.  She knows the killing is wrong, but she will cover it up to save her career.

Alan's 20-year-old son, Carl, is a great guy but his tragic flaw is that he's an anti-Hamlet -- he takes too much effective action too quickly.  Carl is a technology whiz. He had just installed a security camera on the morning of the day Bob killed Alan, so Carl gets to watch every minute of his father's death in grainy black-and-white with tinny audio.  Then Carl looks up Bob's badge number on a cracked police database, finds his house, and ambushes Bob just as Bob is returning home to his loving wife, Darlene.

Carl cripples Bob;  then  Bob must watch Carl kill Darlene slowly and painfully.


None of these people are cartoon-evil villain-monsters.  All of these people do monstrous things (even Alan, the meth chemist whose products might injure his customers).

Carl is the main tragic hero of this piece (although it could be argued that all four characters are tragic heroes).  Carl is besieged by fate and his life is going to be monstrous.  But Carl is not a monster -- he's an essentially average man, fated to be in a situation whose trials he could not withstand.  

I've never played a guy exactly like Carl in a role-playing game, but RPG player-characters get into situations like Carl rather frequently.  (Part of the problem is that lots of the kewl powerz in RPGs revolve around ultra-violence.)  I've definitely been in a lot of game situations where my player character was just as socially unacceptable as Carl.

I've gotten a lot of positive feedback for my socially unacceptable PCs.  They were not nice, and maybe no group would want such characters at every single session.  But they definitely are a good tool in the dramatic toolbox.

Hear, hear.