GMing for PCs of evil alignments

[MrShowtime]

I've been having a little bit of a difficult time adjusting to the new evil alignments that a couple if my players have decided to introduce lately. We typically play the simple mercs for hire types of characters but the newest characters introduced are very evil.

We were on an escort mission. It was very simple (I had just recently taken over as GM and wanted to ease my way in) just excort a wagon to a mining town. One of the guys we were assisting got ambushed and abducted so we set out to rescue him. Upon finding him, one of my pcs demanded a ridiculous amount of gold for the rescue. They almost left him behind to die when he said he didn't have it. Luckily another of my pcs helped.

There has been other incidents like this lately. I'm wondering how you deal with this kind of team? I spent alot of time working on this campaign but i fear that they may not help these people. I'm starting to think I'll have to make them work for some organized crime syndicate pulling heists and murders. Which is fine but I don't want my work to go to waste. Any thoughts are greatly appreciated.

[Orin J.]

....how much to you feel the group would be upset if the offending players met with an.....unfortunate accident?

[Soldier of Od]

Sorry - double post

[Soldier of Od]

I've been having a little bit of a difficult time adjusting to the new evil alignments that a couple if my players have decided to introduce lately. We typically play the simple mercs for hire types of characters but the newest characters introduced are very evil.

Bolded emphasis mine. Role-playing games are a collaborative affair, and I think that when ever a player needs to introduce a new character they should discuss it with their GM to see what kind of character would be a good fit and what kind of character they want to play. This includes lots of different things, of which alignment is one. It is a bit late for you now, but I don't think that a player should just "decide" to introduce whatever character they like without first considering the other players and the GM. But as it is a bit late for that...

Start by talking to the players and letting them know you are concerned. They may be very understanding and be willing to change their characters for you. Playing a "slightly" evil or a selfish character can be fun - the idea the player came up with of extorting money from the victim they just saved actually sounds like a cool role-playing opportunity. But it could be achieved by playing an anarchist aligned character and perhaps demanding a more achievable ransom! Maybe the player would be willing to explore that as a possibility. Or perhaps one of them would be willing to change their alignment to aberrant, where at least they might be restrained from commenting some of the more severe or pointless acts of evil by their code of honour.

If not, ask the players to come up with reasons why these evil people might be inclined to be "adventurers" and why they choose to make a living helping people for money - because that usually what fantasy role-playing adventures are all about. If they can give their characters a motive or a hook you can use it will be easier for you to encourage them to do the thing the rest of the group wants to do. Even something as simple as revenge - turns out the nasty bandits that have kidnapped the farmer's children are the same ones that set fire to your pig all those years ago!

Also, can the other players help? Do the other characters in the group want to hang around or work with these evil people? Do the evil people really want to work with these goody-two-shoes? If so, why? Does one of them feel they can make the bad guys see the light? Is that a character arc one of the evil players would be interested in exploring? Make it part of the campaign. Basically, see if everyone else can get on board and help you and each other all enjoy the game. Hope that helps!

[kiralon]

+1

It is a multiplayer game where everyone has to do their bit, not just the DM. It's not saying they can't play bad people, but as Soldier said RPG is mostly about being heroic/saving people, and that things won't be fun if they head down that path because the good characters would be more likely to turn the evil characters in than run around murdering people, and having a big difference in alignment can make the group unhappy with the good players not liking what the bad players are doing and vice versa.
But I have had luck in hiring evil pc's into mercenary groups who like their good name, so the pc's join and get paid to do good, and if they do bad they get told off/have their thieving hand chopped of by the mercenary company policing themselves (But remember to warn them about the required code of conduct before hand). I find that reduced cost or free healing is a pretty good carrot to dangle as a treat for the party. If they get mauled the ycan go back to the company and get healed in a day rather than a week.

[Veknironth]

Well, it sounds like you have a mixed group. One option is that the good aligned characters just don't want to be around the evil aligned ones. That can take several forms, but all of them can lead to disharmony among the actual players. The lowest impact is the job is finished and the good characters just go their own way. They leave the evil ones behind and/or refuse to work with them again. The next level up is reporting the behavior of the evil characters to some authority and the evil characters are arrested. It could be a fun experience to run a trial. The third is the good PCs take matters into their own hands and then you have some good old PC on PC violence. The funny thing about this is whichever side wins can sort of steer the campaign in the direction they want and sort of force the other players to roll like minded PCs. The less violent methods put you, as the GM, into a rough spot. You either GM two separate groups, force the abandoned players to re-roll, or lose the players.

-Vek
"Losing a player who is constantly at odds with the other PCs can be an addition."

[Colonel_Tetsuya]

This is why Session 0 is massively important.

Also, just because a character is evil doesn't mean he has to behave like a comic book villain.

Instead of leaving them behind because they didnt have enough money.. you bleed him for all the money he DOES have. You can be evil without being stupid.

You can also be evil and still be a team player - even if you are out for #1 (yourself), that can almost always be translated into "i do better with these mooks around". Want to save the princess? Cool. Those idiots are doing it for fun/because theyre good guys. I'm doing it for the reward (both monetary and possible favors from her dad).

That being said, Miscreant and Diabolic are not well suited alignments to playing in a party, much like Chaotic Evil in D&D is basically not compatible with party harmony (but Lawful Evil and Neutral Evil can be).

[Prysus]

Greetings and Salutations. Interestingly enough, about a month ago I started a new campaign with some new players (new to role-playing as a whole). One of the players decided to play a Priest of Darkness dedicated to Set. The other two players were leaning good to selfish. As such, I recently gave this some thought. And what I decided on I think is represented well by a quote from Burn Notice.

Being a spy, you have to get comfortable with the idea of people doing bad things for good reasons. Doing good things for bad reasons. You do the best you can.

This is a matter of perspective. Find a reason for the evil characters to do the good task you want, but for the wrong reasons.

In my particular campaign, I ended up having the priest help stop a slaving ring because the slavers had kidnapped (allegedly) a previous Priest of Set in the region. So his instructions were to get revenge ... and to have the locals start a war with the goblin tribe responsible. Meanwhile, another player was attempting to save a tribe member taken by the slavers, and the other player was a different victim (escaping and getting free is that person's motivation). Now all three are working to take down the goblin tribe for different reasons.

So if the goal is to help out a mining town, then the evil players don't have to do it just because it's the right thing to do. Maybe a crime syndicate has investment in the mines (either financial, the mines supply them with something they need, owe a favor to a dead member's family who happen to work at the mines, etc.). The evil players may be interested in helping so they can get in good with the syndicate (an initiation so to speak), and end up helping the people as a byproduct of their own self interests.

Hope some of that helps. Farewell and safe journeys.