I had the PCs as powerful members of a mafia organization; they were the four best guns for the Boss. When sent to shut down an enemy mob, they find the key to a secret weapon of ultimate power (clichéd maybe, but for this campaign it’s not about a deep pre-fabricated plot). The Boss knew about this item, without revealing his knowledge to the PCs, and sent a loyal agent to aid them. When the PCs considered hiding the “stone shard” (key) and forging a fake one, the agent ratted them out to the Boss. I left the left blank, anticipating either the PCs to give in and hand over the stone and continue loyalty to the boss, or betray him.

In the end the PCs killed the Boss in cold blood, along with his aide and the agent. However, when questioned by the other members of the mob, they said that the agent killed the Boss. They in turn took the throne and seek to pursue both the super-weapon and expand their power.

Anyhow, I think it helps to keep a comic side to the whole thing. They’re not deeply evil, they’re more like caricatures of evil, and that’s okay. Its fun, and that’s what matters. Though they’re after the weapon, they have their own motives: the psion seeks world domination, the barbarian wants to make things dead, the cleric wants to expand his deity’s influence, and the spellthief wants to grow in power, by taking it from others.

Also, the way to an evil man’s heart is through his pride. My next plan to motivate the PCs is to have them outdone in fiendishness by another team of evil-doers. Comical yes, but a strong bait to get the PCs to follow a similar goal, since the players may kill the local baron sooner than accepting their quest.

“Evil” is always something the other guy does. It’s what happens when you give up trying to understand how someone could have brought himself to do an awful thing. You just shrug your shoulders and say, “Well, he’s evil.” Once you’ve done that for a character, the character ceases to drive the story and simply hams his way through the motions of fulfilling his role of evil-ness.

Even D&D has finally acknowledged (in the 4E PHB) that “alignment” is more of a team jersey than it is an actual aid to role-play.

It is the standard motivation for any number of board games.

remoray

If you wished to resuscitate that campaign, here is my suggestion.

Award each player another level or two. Ask them what their character accomplished solo over the next few months, how they established themselves. Then design some mutual threat that would force them to seek allies, and think back to their old comrades… Such powerful individuals have power or money to find each other. If any player says “My character becomes a mercenary/thief,” then have another PC hire them.

That said, of course evil PCs fight each other a lot. Much of this is small: don’t expect an evil party to equally divide up treasure. Everyone will want the biggest share possible, and if they get a chance to lie (“The chest was empty. My pockets? Full of… acorns.”) or even bully each other. They don’t have a great sense of comradeship, so if the situation gets dire they’re much more likely to abandon party members who are trapped or in danger (this happened to me… the DM ended up railroading the entire party into a torture chamber). As Walt suggest, motivation is key. Evil PCs can justify co-operation on the basis that the rest of the party is useful to their short or long-term goals. And in a dark, grisly world (and what evil party adventures in candyland? That would be a bit grotesque) no one wants to travel alone.

In our evil campaign, I set up the players up under an evil god (By Your Command) but also setup a couple of the other players to be also more powerful than the other characters (double By Your Command). By ensuring there were 1 or 2 power players taking lead of the party, it kept the group together.

But, as I said, once the party levels evened out and their god disappeared (long story), the bond was gone and the party essentially broke off into 3 different directions ending the campaign (well, we agreed to stop there and possibly continue again in the future with one of the factioned party member groups).

The one thing I’d say is to choose a system that allows, supports and possibly even encourages “evil.” Star Wars is definitely one, if run way after the movies, or way before them. Vampire or Werewolf could fit, though vampires and werewolves in those systems aren’t necessarily seen (by the players) as evil. Even Shadowrun would work.

Burning Wheel is a great one, where you can play Orcs, Great Wolves (Wargs), Trolls and even Great Spiders (all with fun and diverse lifepaths)! I ran a one-off with a buddy where he played an Orc (a goblin Whisperer of the Dark, a ritualist sorcerer) and we had a lot of fun. He even had his own brawny, dumb-as-a-post Destroyer (Orc warrior type) bodyguard.

A great example of an evil campaign (BW) can be read about here.

After a bit of discussion regarding how ‘evil’ the GM would allow the characters to be, I ran it off with this great set of opening lines
Me: It’ll be easy. Go in, kill anyone in my way, get the thing, come back.
Jedi: You can’t just go around killing innocent people.
Me: Sure you can. It’s easy, watch. *lightsaber noise, and the screams of the innocent*

Naumer was fun, because he was so UTTERLY BATSHIT.

Also, the Jedi and I spent the whole game trying to tempt the other to their side, which was a nice undertone.