I am currently wondering how an evil campaign would look like in a group of progressive players.
After all there are so many things which are usually done by the evil guys like forced labour, discrimination, violence,... which are a trigger for progressive players.

A lot of X-cards flying around, I guess. And that session zero is going to take ages.

They'd just be playing themselves.

I don't know how you would run a successful evil campaign with people perpetually ready to be offended.

Here's how I would run an evil campaign.

I'd run a normal campaign but only give XP for evil deeds.  They would earn money needed by doing quests but hey would need to work out for themselves what evil deeds they were going to do.  The more evil it is, the more XP.  (You better steel yourself for this, I've had players earnestly consider child murder as a solution in a heroic campaign.)

I would also make sure that they know that all the in world social norms are in place.  If they get caught doing evil things, then expect consequences.  In the long run, they should be making themselves strong enough to take on the authorities and even supplant them.  Again, this would be decisions the players make without input from me.

With this, the evil part of the campaign is up to the players.  Slavery?  That was a player choice, not an idea brought up by the GM.

Well, there's plenty of evil actions the progressive left has no problem with: theft, looting, subversion, political assassination etc. For example, I think you could easily take a bunch of leftist players and set up a campaign where they're playing as Satanists trying to subvert the Church in early modern France or England (or make up a fantasy equivalent), and they'd go right along with it. Maybe just don't tell them it's an evil campaign? I feel like I could get a group happily assassinating priests, killing innocent watchmen and seducing married people away from their spouses, and they'd never even question it. 

Quote from: Coffeecup on December 08, 2023, 03:30:55 AM
I am currently wondering how an evil campaign would look like in a group of progressive players.
After all there are so many things which are usually done by the evil guys like forced labour, discrimination, violence,... which are a trigger for progressive players.

Nah they'll do all that and worse, they'll just sugar coat it. There's a great comedy sketch group in Australia, and this one skit was all about woke drone operators discussing the preferred pronouns of the people they were bombing.

It's progressive evil to deny one's unique identity or lived experience. Not sure how you turn that into a game though.Progressives  tend to lack a sense of irony and humor. I doubt they would ever play an evil campaign. 

Quote from: Skullking on December 08, 2023, 06:11:47 AM
They'd just be playing themselves.

This.  There are various groups calling them selves or espousing some version of "by an means necessary," variously attributed to Sartre, Fanon, and Malcolm X.  They're proclaiming that they're willing to do anything, no matter how damaging or harmful to others to get what they want, because what they want is that important to them.  That's actually a pretty good definition of "evil."

Quote from: Kerstmanneke82 on December 08, 2023, 04:27:19 AM
A lot of X-cards flying around, I guess. And that session zero is going to take ages.

"I X Card, your X Card; because I am offended by X Cards."

Quote from: Jam The MF on December 08, 2023, 02:28:33 PM

Quote from: Kerstmanneke82 on December 08, 2023, 04:27:19 AM
A lot of X-cards flying around, I guess. And that session zero is going to take ages.

"I X Card, your X Card; because I am offended by X Cards."

I could see that being built into such a game as a session zero minigame you play to decide the direction of the campaign.  Whoever is screechiest wins.  They'd probably love it

Well . . . arguably progressives favour Chaos, and conservatives Law (order). So it just be most groups (I've always felt there is a bias to the chaos axis)?
Just add the self-centered, self-righteous adventurers who hate authority figures . . . and you can probably fall into evil pretty easily.

Frankly, I've always thought the evil/good axis muddies things and isn't as interesting as straight Law/Chaos.

Quote from: Thondor on December 08, 2023, 03:27:18 PM
Well . . . arguably progressives favour Chaos, and conservatives Law (order). So it just be most groups (I've always felt there is a bias to the chaos axis)?
Just add the self-centered, self-righteous adventurers who hate authority figures . . . and you can probably fall into evil pretty easily.

Frankly, I've always thought the evil/good axis muddies things and isn't as interesting as straight Law/Chaos.

It could just as easily be argued that Progressives favor State control of everyone's lives (Law) while Conservatives favor individual freedom and responsibility (Chaos)... which is why trying to map real things to D&D's alignment chart is often silly (see "Batman could be any alignment").

I'd suggest the best way to do an evil campaign is just not use alignment at all, find out what the player's goals for their PCs are, and then start offering them easy, but morally dubious means of achieving those ends... then allow logical consequences of their actions to come due.

Quote from: Chris24601 on December 08, 2023, 03:57:34 PM

Quote from: Thondor on December 08, 2023, 03:27:18 PM
Well . . . arguably progressives favour Chaos, and conservatives Law (order). So it just be most groups (I've always felt there is a bias to the chaos axis)?
Just add the self-centered, self-righteous adventurers who hate authority figures . . . and you can probably fall into evil pretty easily.

Frankly, I've always thought the evil/good axis muddies things and isn't as interesting as straight Law/Chaos.

It could just as easily be argued that Progressives favor State control of everyone's lives (Law) while Conservatives favor individual freedom and responsibility (Chaos)... which is why trying to map real things to D&D's alignment chart is often silly (see "Batman could be any alignment").

I'd suggest the best way to do an evil campaign is just not use alignment at all, find out what the player's goals for their PCs are, and then start offering them easy, but morally dubious means of achieving those ends... then allow logical consequences of their actions to come due.

Yeah... I'm old enough to remember the tyranny of the "moral majority" and the satanic panic.  Between control and individual liberty, I'm very in favor of liberty and neither the right nor the left has shown respect for liberty when they have power.

.

I expect it'll be the same as the rest of us playing an evil campaign, but the jokes will be rubbish, and there'll be less monty python/it ain't half hot Mum/Macc Lads references.

On the X card tangent, not using them because they are triggering IS a thing. They mimic a particular type of abuse - "You should know what you did wrong without me telling you what it is, now apologise to me." Usually followed by physical abuse when the poor victim can't apologise fast/well enough.