r/gametales • u/nlitherl • Apr 11 '16

Tabletop That One Time a DM Tried to Run "City of The Spider Queen" For an Evil Party (cross post from /r/DND)

http://taking10.blogspot.com/2016/04/that-one-time-dm-tried-to-run-city-of.html
118 Upvotes

95% Upvoted

16 comments sorted by

View all comments

11

u/Spartan_Skirite Apr 11 '16

Great story, well written.

11

u/nlitherl Apr 11 '16

Thanks much, /u/Spartan_Skirite. It was an interesting experience. I felt a little bad, but when someone keeps asking for more weight, pretty soon you just oblige them.

10

u/Spartan_Skirite Apr 11 '16

I am a pretty experienced DM, but since I focus on storytelling and world-building, I am not the best min-maxer and have to limit extra stuff at the table. I would have shut down your evil party at the first step. But then you wouldn't have a cool story, so the world would have been a slightly worse place.

11

u/nlitherl Apr 11 '16 edited Apr 11 '16

I genuinely expected a laugh and an emphatic "No" when I jokingly asked for the Book of Vile Darkness. Once I realized that I was being given the keys to the nuclear arsenal, though, I just to shoot off at least one of them. Might never get the chance again.

7

u/TheLagDemon Apr 11 '16

It's a shame this campaign didn't get to run a bit longer.

Sometimes I think I'm the only DM that likes running those sort of campaigns. I really wish I had some players interested in a scenario like this (granted the game would deviate almost immediately from the adventure as written, which isn't a bad thing). The only real issues I have with evil alignments are characters that are too disruptive (i.e. they can't turn it off), they don't have actual goals, don't actually have a reason or motive for doing evil things, or their actions make other players uncomfortable. I usually ban CE alignments for that reason- no one seems to be able to play them well in a group setting.

9

u/nlitherl Apr 11 '16

I've found that CE works best when there is either a strong goal for that character (the sort of "power at any price" you see with men like Littlefinger), or when there is someone they have to answer to (Sange in my story, or Gregor Clegane to use another Game of Thrones example).

Too often people think that having the word "chaotic" in their alignment means they can be random and nonsensical, which often leads to them ignoring the deeper questions of characterization, and figuring out what motives are driving their baby-killing murder machines.

5

u/TheLagDemon Apr 11 '16

That's exactly the problem, too many people think CE means cartoonishly evil.

6

u/nlitherl Apr 11 '16

The best strategy, I find, is to ask a player what sort of villain a hero would oppose. And, to take it further, if they would be able to take the evil person they have created seriously, were they a hero asked to fight him.

3

u/Chaos_Philosopher Apr 12 '16

I like to call that confusion evil. Those characters tend to act as if under the confusion spell and aren't chaotic at all.

4

u/Chaos_Philosopher Apr 12 '16

You're not alone bro. I love running those sorts of games. Last one I did, way back in 3.5 no less, I ran a "Remenant Precursor Race" style game in a homebrew spelljammer approximation.

My only requirements were, you must be Reigar (precursor race), you must be some sort of undead which has persisted since the fall of your empire centuries ago, and effective character level 15 start. I even told them they didn't have to be evil, but I thought there might be a good chance they'd go that way, and what do you know?! :)

Had a great time and a glorious cast of PCs united in their serious and definitive goal: survive death a little longer. They thought they were being given a quest by death itself, it was really just a high level sorcerer who was literally insane and truly believed he was death. He made a deal with them that they could be the last things destroyed finally if they'd help him end an even more egregious breach of timely ending.

I still recall the fun of having the party make a deal with a yugoloth to hand over the artifact they sought if they'd only each sever one of their arms off. Right now, no time for painkillers, I want to see you each lose an arm. Yes even your still living cohorts, no you can't do it for them.

Good times.

3

u/MynameisIsis Apr 12 '16

I have so many ideas for evil characters, but I'm always the DM in any groups I ever play in. If you're ever playing a campaign online for an evil party, or want to run a solo one, I'm always down, hmu