How to DM an Evil Campaign

Greetings gamers from all systems, places and timelines.

When playing D&D, or really any TTRG system, there are often plenty of classic, low-hanging plot fruits for players to easily pull off the DM’s story tree. These traditional plot hooks come in all shapes and sizes, and they can range anywhere from saving a kingdom to getting a cat out of a tree.

However, all of those plot devices hinge on the understanding that the players are running heroes – or at least anti-hero mercenaries, which are usually willing to take on all of the same quests as actual heroes but demand to be paid at least half upfront.

While that is all fine and dandy, I am here today to talk about the less-traveled road, the third option, which is where you give your players the chance to actually be the villains of the story. 

When Did You Trade Reason for Madness?

Disclaimer: Not to beat a dead horse, but as the DM, you have to know your room well enough that this idea won’t instantly meet strong opposition (like how fans reacted to Marvel’s Inhumans, but I digress). Please keep in mind that this style of campaign is not for the faint of heart, and some players simply wouldn’t enjoy the experience.

On the other hand, over my years of gaming, only a select few of the campaigns were made up of PC villains. But let me tell you, those were some of the most memorable games of them all, and their stories live on long after those characters have been retired.

To help you to have a successful villainous campaign, I will provide four guidelines that have worked for me in the past. And trust me when I say they can make the difference between a party wiping each other out or creating their own evil pantheon. (And who wouldn’t want to do that?) 

1. The Proper Setting Is Required 

When running such a style of game, the DM should lay down some guidelines on how law and order work in session zero.

For example, are the players starting in some lawless border town on the edge of the kingdom where anything goes? Or is the setting like an RPG from the ’90s where, if you kill someone in a cabin in the middle of the woods with no witness, you suddenly have 4 out of 5 stars like it’s Grand Theft Auto? If the latter is the case, maybe this isn’t the best environment for an evil game in the first place. 

When conceptualizing an evil campaign, it’s easy to visualize the players operating in some epicenter location like Greyhawk or a D&D version of New York. But, in reality, like anyone else, they just need a place to hang their hats and take long rests without being subjected to random encounters. While there is nothing wrong with having your party operate from a centralized location as a base of operations, my advice is to avoid accidentally shifting your plot into a sequence of town modules. Some groups might really enjoy that, however, in my experience, that type of scenario is just something to be run once in a while or as a filler between more serious plot devices. 

2. A Proper Villain Is Refined 

Because of the volatile nature of an evil campaign, it is advised that the players show up to Game One with a firm grasp on the characters they intend to play.

Now you might be thinking, “don’t we do that anyway?” Sometimes. I have jumped into games at the last minute countless times with a character whose motives were yet to be determined. For a villain, the bar is somewhat raised.

For example, how many times have you run into a good-aligned PC who took up a life of adventuring because their village, spouse, children, parents, village or pet was struck down by the forces of evil? Honestly, I’ve run into characters using that formula more times than the Joker has escaped from Arkham! A villainous character needs more complex and well-thought-out motivations if they are going to be successful. 

3. There Is a Difference Between Being Evil and Being Ridiculous  

You’re probably now envisioning the players getting hacked to pieces by the town guards in session two because the party rogue has zero impulse control. But a decent villain can’t have a temperament like that if they intend on living long, especially if they are operating in a group.

Here the old but true saying, “just because you’re evil it doesn’t mean you’re stupid,” applies.

For example, maybe the level-2 necromancer shouldn’t get mouthy with the grand knight just because she’s the leader of some goodie-two-shoes paladin order? Equally important, it also doesn’t mean villains should turn down quests just because they aren’t directly furthering their evil plans.

Regardless of what evil schemes are being planned, they will undoubtedly require gold, XP, magic and allies to accomplish them. And in D&D, you’re not going to wake up and accidentally discover you are level 11 without putting that quest time in. Oh, and by the way, it’s extremely hard to hold a title like “dark overlord” when you’re still in the first tier. (Just saying.)

4. Think Legion of Doom 

No, I am not suggesting that you create a spaceship shaped like a dark giant helmet and keep it submerged in a random bayou. What I mean is,villains who want to be successful need the proper attitude when working in a group.

If you’re playing a character as powerful as Thanos, then you can bend the will of an entire party around you. However, it’s rather unlikely that a group of players running villain characters would be satisfied playing second fiddle to another player who, for whatever reason, is somehow vastly more powerful and influential than them. Not that it can’t be done, but it’s a far harder sell. 

Now, I cannot stress the importance of this last point enough, because it will make a huge difference in the performance of your group at numerous levels. The players would need to be able to put their secrets on the table so they can learn the strengths and weaknesses of their teammates for the betterment of the group. In this arrangement, there can be no room for petty jealousy or back-door deals against other teammates because all of the other characters will agree to come down on that group disrupter like a ton of bricks.

The value of this arrangement is the fledgling  evil party now knows how to cover their members who have specific weaknesses and what they excel at. Also, this group will become hyper-focused on not just their personal goals but the main goal of this organization they are creating.

So, the bottom line is this: Players who want to have evil characters must be committed to working well together instead of scheming behind each other’s backs. Only then will they truly be a force to be reckoned with. 

Conclusion 

Running an evil campaign for your players could be just the kind of change of pace a DM who’s been with the same group for a while could use. For the players, it gives them a chance to stop trying to see who in the party is the most Lawful Good and just wreck some stuff. This style of game is a bit harder to navigate than the traditional ones, but because of that, it can be extremely memorable.

Have you played in an evil campaign or thinking about running one? Because we would love to hear about it.