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[Loud Whispers]

I find myself in an introspective mood, and I wonder why so many groups I've been in reject the concept of just being evil and owning it. Almost every PC I've ever encountered was fundamentally evil and self serving, willing to knife a guy for a handful of coins provided they didn't like him, defile bodies, loot from temples, break deals, flout cultural norms, belittle the superstitious and prejudiced to their faces, manipulate, steal and lie.

About the only thing I can say was consistently good about the PCs I've seen was that they were all anti-child cruelty and (mostly) pro-equality. Still casually violent and greedy, the desire to protect children and minorities (including fantasy one) being about the only redeeming quality.

Why have we never just gone 'fuck it' and overthrown a monarchy to implement our own regime of tight leather and spiky metal armour? We always just meander along picking up breadcrumbs with personal goals that we have little agency to achieve. I want to see more PCs with personal goals like 'fabricate a claim to the throne and start a civil war,' or 'use sectarian violence and rabble rousing to propel myself into a position of high office in my city.'

tl;dr:
1. Players have different abilities to roleplay as a character, especially one with different moral systems
2. Players themselves have different moral systems, and abilities to understand different moral systems
3. You often find players who do not actually know what they want out of a game

1. Players who can't roleplay RPGs can't roleplay as an evil person
Because they are essentially self-inserting and unless they are particularly edgy, do not like feeling like an evil person.
'I'm tired of playing this char because I basically just RP him as myself and he's such a shit person so it's making me feel like shit too,' - actual quote from one of my TTRPG group playing with another DM.
I once had a good laugh making "evil" characters with one of my DM friends, in a campaign where I'd show up to play NPCs occasionally, e.g. an old lady who lived in the woods who was clearly a probable witch, but there was never any definite proof she was the cause of any of the weird and horrible things happening. One of my players, frequent user of Reddit, always plays the same character in every setting and every game (e.g. good natured intellectual who uses healing magic/biowarfare/subterfuge/metagaming to destroy the enemy without a fight).
He asks if my NPC was really an evil witch or not, both the DM and I say we have no idea. This player ended up destroying the afterlife, deleting all souls, including those who had lived good lives or sad lives, and became an enforcer for the government that was genociding all the elves and wizards, concentration camps and all. Even stopped a wizard plot to destroy the government's WMD program, so the government was able to mass-produce nuclear bombs. Pretty clear cut evil right? But for some reason they just kept siding with authority or refusing to work outside of established courtly procedure.

My DM was crying to me tears of blood over curry that the same player who had destroyed the afterlife and was talking about using dimensional teleportation to send his big villain into the sun was the same player complaining that he wasn't "allowed" to stop the concentration camps even though one fireball is all it'd take to tear down the camp walls.
I next made a necromancer child character who was basically a ( Blue's Clues character + evil spooky necromancy ) in this campaign. This same player said the necrochild was too evil to be in the party, despite the necrochild having saved the lives of 3 people, killed no one, attacked no one. The main difference is whereas with the old lady not!witch I and the DM had left it ambiguous, with the necrochild the DM and I said out of character they really were a necromancer.
It was almost like a parody of a generic JRPG where the corrupt church of light masquerades as "good" because it's brightly coloured in shining armour whilst the "evil bone lords" are actually the ones interested in helping people. What's key however, is that he was RPing as a cute and wholesome bard, which is clearly good-seeming, whereas I was RPing as a Dr. Frankenstein reanimator, which is clearly evil-seeming.

2. Players who have a difficult time even understanding what an evil person is
I've had many players of many faiths, and lack thereofs. One particular advantage of playing with atheists, Hindus, Muslims and Eastern faith peoples is that none of them I played with knew what furries were, so I would not have to deal with white froth of the mouth any time a mythological creature was encountered. But there are other things I've noticed, which is that all of my players who have grown up as a minority inside of other people's moral majorities have a much more developed sense of wide perspective than those who were Catholics who lived in Catholic worlds or Jewish and lived in Jewish worlds all their life. E.g. one such player messed up and accidentally killed an innocent person by blasting their warlock invocations all over the place, and in order to maintain a good reputation with a friendly NPC, began murdering every single NPC who had knowledge of their misdeeds in an ever-growing spiral of murder.

When pressed on whether murdering children to steal their souls was morally good or not, or whether murdering many peoples to protect your reputation as a good person is good or not, they presented many moral relativistic arguments instead of facing the obvious that they were RPing as very nasty men. For them they had a great deal of difficulty understanding morality on an intrinsic level, instead constantly evaluating it on an intellectual level (no surprise they spent aeons in academia).
Another genuinely told me to my face "well I'm glad I don't think like you," when I explained to them my religious beliefs, after they asked me about my religious beliefs. They did this without a hint of malice or arrogance in their voice; and often would deny that it was possible for others to think any different way besides their own world-view. When you are this myopic how can you even begin to make an evil character, when you can rationalise any evil as good provided an authority figure sanctions it, and evil is just a piece of clothing you wear?

3. PLAYERS OFTEN DO NOT KNOW WHAT THEY WANT
It is a frequent frustration that outside of a core group of good gamers, I and other GMs or DMs I've been friends with over the years who have had players complain after being given exactly what they asked for. E.g. they want an open world game where they are free to do what they want, but then complain that they are not being given orders or quests, or complain that they do not know what they can or cannot do when given exactly an open world of freedom. Unfortunately this also applies to playing in evil or morally grey campaigns.
Even ones who request evil campaigns I've found do not want evil campaigns. They want heroic campaigns where they save the day, but are dressed in black leather. They want to play the matrix, but don't know they want to play the matrix, so they ask for an evil campaign.

I once had a dark heresy campaign go up in flames. There were many reasons for its death, but one of the hilarious ones was a player who was tasked by the Inquisition to assassinate some Tau officials who were slowly working towards annexing an Imperial world. They kept confiding in the other players that the Tau were obviously hiding something sinister and evil, behind their thin facade of religious tolerance, alien pluralism, social progress and imperial federalism. Only, there was no sinister plot (from the Tau).
They had gone into this Inquisition campaign on the assumption that everything they did would be justified and all the aliens they exterminate are evil, but the first thing I told him was come into this with no assumptions, and in the Inquisition the first thing you realise everything you "know" is a lie. I had to deal with this same player who complained that my Inquisitor NPCs were not exterminating worlds, heretics and aliens on sight as "unrealistic" was now tasking them assassinating "nice" aliens.
Does he seriously think all the "heretics" deserved it too?
FML.
Though admittedly it's my fault for not seeing it coming, they also saw their actions as morally justified when defending the concentration camp government in one of my friend's campaigns. Such players make me smash my head against the wall / can only run games where you have to kill the Dark Lord and his legions of mindless brutes who all deserve terrible fates :|

[Grim Portent]

I once had a dark heresy campaign go up in flames. There were many reasons for its death, but one of the hilarious ones was a player who was tasked by the Inquisition to assassinate some Tau officials who were slowly working towards annexing an Imperial world. They kept confiding in the other players that the Tau were obviously hiding something sinister and evil, behind their thin facade of religious tolerance, alien pluralism, social progress and imperial federalism. Only, there was no sinister plot (from the Tau).
They had gone into this Inquisition campaign on the assumption that everything they did would be justified and all the aliens they exterminate are evil, but the first thing I told him was come into this with no assumptions, and in the Inquisition the first thing you realise everything you "know" is a lie. I had to deal with this same player who complained that my Inquisitor NPCs were not exterminating worlds, heretics and aliens on sight as "unrealistic" was now tasking them assassinating "nice" aliens.
Does he seriously think all the "heretics" deserved it too?
FML.
Though admittedly it's my fault for not seeing it coming, they also saw their actions as morally justified when defending the concentration camp government in one of my friend's campaigns. Such players make me smash my head against the wall / can only run games where you have to kill the Dark Lord and his legions of mindless brutes who all deserve terrible fates :|

And here I am with character concepts like 'is literally a religiously motivated zealot who killed someone with a car bomb for political reasons' (40k frateris militia character) or 'one of the last surviving servants of an old dark lord, looking to collect the missing relics needed to bring him back' or 'a knight who's in love with Tiamat and wants to free her from Hell, regardless of the cost to himself or others,' or 'a cultist of Baphomet who believes that the relationship between predator and prey is sacred above all else and hunts people for sport.'

Or of course the ones I've actually played like the man eating lizardfolk shaman, the bounty hunter who wanted to drag bandits back to town in manacles so they could be publicly hanged rather than just shanked in the woods and was openly in favour of burning magic users at the stake for witchcraft, various amoral scientists, sorcerers (40k ones, so chaos dabblers), a dark eldar exile, a chaos marine, an early 1900s weirdo occultist.

[Great Order]

Ha, the Dark Heresy campaign sounds like they suffered from "Designated Hero" syndrome. Everything they did was justified because they're the main characters, so it has to work out in the end and it has to turn out good.

[Loud Whispers]

And here I am with character concepts like 'is literally a religiously motivated zealot who killed someone with a car bomb for political reasons' (40k frateris militia character) or 'one of the last surviving servants of an old dark lord, looking to collect the missing relics needed to bring him back' or 'a knight who's in love with Tiamat and wants to free her from Hell, regardless of the cost to himself or others,' or 'a cultist of Baphomet who believes that the relationship between predator and prey is sacred above all else and hunts people for sport.'

Yeah these kinds of character concepts that are simple, have a clear identity and avoid novelty tend to make the most memorable characters. Because the emphasis is always on "who" they are and not "what" they are. It's why I think lots of people are scared of DnD players, because they are accustomed to making things and not chars. I'll never forget one of my player's hilarious introductions when they were asked who they were.
"I'm a tiefling!"
Followed by silence. Fortunately they grew out of that. It's another weird thing though when you have chars who can't stick to their own char's morality. Like I can ask them to make a frateris militia character who is basically the space taliban but more racist and they'll make Gandhi. But then I ask them to make a morally upright Paladin for a noble bright campaign and they give me Unit-731's deicidal cousin. I legit had one who accused and murdered people suspected of being vampires until they met an actual confirmed vampire, at which point they made friends with them. I'm so confused by this

The golden rule imo is just pick some DF values and stick by em

Or of course the ones I've actually played like the man eating lizardfolk shaman, the bounty hunter who wanted to drag bandits back to town in manacles so they could be publicly hanged rather than just shanked in the woods and was openly in favour of burning magic users at the stake for witchcraft, various amoral scientists, sorcerers (40k ones, so chaos dabblers), a dark eldar exile, a chaos marine, an early 1900s weirdo occultist.

I've always wanted to run a DH campaign where the Inquisitor in charge speaks in Alex Jones and Darkest Dungeon ancestor quotes. I'm interested in how you RP a DE Exile though. Chaos Marines are pretty fun and easy to RP because they often come with their own value codes already (e.g. aligned with one of the 4, worships the 4, or just uses the 4 as a means to an end). I always find it hilarious but difficult to balance an alien being a party with humans whilst still retaining that alien core... Especially since a lot of Dark Eldar values like betrayal do not mesh well with players who are not expecting betrayals

Ha, the Dark Heresy campaign sounds like they suffered from "Designated Hero" syndrome. Everything they did was justified because they're the main characters, so it has to work out in the end and it has to turn out good.

Yeah, it is an important expectation to set. I feel gutted it died because I did make it clear that they would be "another guy" amidst a sea of peoples getting things done, not the "main character" around which the world revolved. It was one of the few things my players said I did well, which I appreciate, that all of the characters had their own agendas and didn't stop existing when the players stopped interacting with them. I think games where the players are the heroes who will save the world are fun, I think games where the players are just people living in a world are fun, but getting everyone into the same boat when words fail is soul-wrenching

[Grim Portent]

I've always wanted to run a DH campaign where the Inquisitor in charge speaks in Alex Jones and Darkest Dungeon ancestor quotes. I'm interested in how you RP a DE Exile though. Chaos Marines are pretty fun and easy to RP because they often come with their own value codes already (e.g. aligned with one of the 4, worships the 4, or just uses the 4 as a means to an end). I always find it hilarious but difficult to balance an alien being a party with humans whilst still retaining that alien core... Especially since a lot of Dark Eldar values like betrayal do not mesh well with players who are not expecting betrayals.

Gist of the DE idea was that he was a Trueborn who'd fled Commorragh when it became apparent that he was going to be murdered by his superiors and wasn't able to convince himself he could turn the tables. Fled to realspace, became a mercenary working for a Rogue Trader, is content with the arrangement because it provides a steady stream of victims to kill in combat. Long term plan was to try and bring the rest of the party around to the idea of working with the Dark Eldar, take the skills to navigate the webway and push things towards being slavers, smugglers and pirates with an eye towards becoming wealthy and powerful enough to return and take revenge.

Backstabbing the party was off the table unless a genuinely better option came along. Trying to play both sides of NPC factions against each other on the other hand was something he advocated for. Torture scenes were 'cut to black, gain a pain token' type affairs.

[Loud Whispers]

Oh if it was a rogue trader campaign that does make everything a lot simpler. God rogue trader is fun. Money as a stat is something I've consistently stolen wherever applicable

[Grim Portent]

DE would work in DH as well.

In DH it's not beyond the pale that a radical inquisitor might strike a bargain with a kabal or wych cult, allowing them to prey upon some worlds or imperial guard regiments in exchange for equipment and 'specialists'. Firmly stamps the party on one side of the radical/puritan divide, but it's not an unworkable idea. There might be some treachery at points, but mutually beneficial business is not something to be cast aside without thought.

The DE would absolutely refuse to be branded with the mark of sanction, but wearing it on their helmet or something would probably be fine.

[Loud Whispers]

DE would work in DH as well.

In DH it's not beyond the pale that a radical inquisitor might strike a bargain with a kabal or wych cult, allowing them to prey upon some worlds or imperial guard regiments in exchange for equipment and 'specialists'. Firmly stamps the party on one side of the radical/puritan divide, but it's not an unworkable idea. There might be some treachery at points, but mutually beneficial business is not something to be cast aside without thought.

The DE would absolutely refuse to be branded with the mark of sanction, but wearing it on their helmet or something would probably be fine.

You're not gonna believe me, but I planned on having one of the radical inquisitors they were chasing after be someone who had struck a deal with DE to raid defenceless imperial planets dry - said imperial planets being in the way of a tyranid splinter fleet. The radical inquisitor would get sick DE tech out of the deal, DE allies, whilst depriving the nids of biomass. Counterpoint: evil as hell, doesn't even try to defend the worlds

[Grim Portent]

Sounds like a legitimate strategy. Also a legitimate target, which is what makes 40k feel like 40k.


I actually had an idea for a DH game where the party would unknowingly be in service to a Phaenonite, the super heretical excommunicated Inquisitors, with missions related to capturing various targets alive and securing strange technology. Sometimes in a manner that benefits the Imperium, but often for no apparent reason at all.

I had the idea of a radical but not outright traitorous Inquisitor sending a high tooled acolyte to spy on and attempt to subvert them back to the cause of the righteous, using the guidance of divination to determine that this group of halfwits were the fulcrum upon which fate was turning. Full on cybernetic assassin type of thing, ridiculous gear and bionics, but not attacking the PCs, just occasionally sabotaging their missions and assassinating their allies to stymie the efforts of the Phaenonite while other moves are made elsewhere. Idea was for him to be super annoying to try and deal with, geared up to climb walls, fit into tiny spaces, change his appearance, defy various detection methods and kill or abduct people silently.

Depending on how things went I would offer the PCs the poisoned chalice of embracing their master's ideology, getting access to all kinds of nasty warp tech, sorcerery and so on, or turning on him and trying to deal with the aftermath of that choice. Either by fleeing to pursue a life away from the Inquisition conflict, or by siding with the slowly tightening noose of Inquisitors pursuing their former employer.


Idea for phaenonite aligned missions at the start was things like 'Bring me a live Stench Beast of Strank, don't ask questions,' 'go into this polluted underhive and catch any interesting mutants,' 'Collect this package, don't look at it,' that sort of thing.

[Loud Whispers]

All these campaign ideas lost... Like cancelled appointments in attempted gaming schedules...

[Grim Portent]

So I've had a thought in my head for a couple of days and I rather like this idea, but it's something I'll probably never get to use.


Basic idea is for a one shot/campaign intro where the initial premise is the PCs being members of a criminal group. Italian Mafia, Irish mob, something of that ilk. They're underlings, a handful of toughs, one or two up and comers who have the potential to rise in the ranks.

They are sent to find out who's distributing a drug in their gang's territory without paying a cut. Someone is intruding, and that's not good business.

So they talk to dealers, bribe some cops, talk to the pimps and prostitutes and so on. Enough stuff there to make a few sessions worth of material on just finding things out.

Things lead to a club. Alcohol, smoke, dancing. Drugs and prostitution under the table. Negotiate or force their way into the VIP floor, where drugs and whores are on full display. The boss is in the private rooms behind the VIP floor, guarded by tougher security than the normal club bouncers. Still able to be cajoled, intimidated, persuaded or distracted, but noticeably more... threatening. The private rooms are where things get really fucked up. All sorts of horrible shit being indulged in by those with the money and lack of morals. Wouldn't be surprised if most groups would start shooting people unprompted at this point.

The boss themself is in an office at the end of the private rooms. They are the center of a web of escalatingly nasty crimes, and the competitor the PCs have been sent to shake down, drive off or kill. PCs walk in on them while they talk on the phone, the audible side of the conversation being about sourcing 'merchandise' from the Border Patrol, off the books. When confronted the boss reveals he's not a human but a Lovecraftian horror, a child of Shub-Niggurath that has been masquerading in human form.

Goat head, lots of insectoid limbs, breathes a soporific vapour that fucks with your brain. Defies description in places. Really creepy and sexually aggressive regardless of shape. Is hard to kill but does die if shot, stabbed, set on fire and so on enough. Demigods are demigods, but a double barrel shotgun to the face is a double barrel shotgun to the face.

One shot ends on the PCs killing this abomination, or campaign continues with the premise of them abandoning their crime family to find out more about this... horror story they've found themselves in. Or they decide to find out how to turn the eldritch truths of the world to their own ends, that's an option too.

[Loud Whispers]

Ahaha reminds me of an absolute trainwreck of a campaign, that was still fun whilst it lasted a while. We had the opposite happen where there was an escalating series of eldritch hunters chasing after one of the players. Only instead of investigating further and dealing with the escalating cult shenanigens, the main player got sidetracked by one of my NPCs (I was not DM. Just played loads of NPCs), joined up as a low-ranking gang boy who washed the decks of ol' Jimmy's ship. DM found this very amusing and kept running the cult's activities in the background parallel to the growing north wharf vs south wharf smuggling rivalry, culminating in the player negotiating to unite the gangs to quietly dispose of the cult. Not because the cult was trying to end the world; but because the cult was getting the town guards pissed off and the corrupt guard Captain was telling the gangs that if the cult wasn't quietly swept away, the government would crack down on everyone suspicious - starting with the gangs.
And so the gangs united to save the world, because you can't sell tax-free liquor if the world's ended

[Grim Portent]

I think I've mentioned before that I want to do a one shot Lovecraftian story set in a fishing village haven't I?

Well either way, one of the big hurdles to any such story is what to do with the ending. How to confront an eldritch horror without making it just a magical squid to shoot in the face?

And I've found myself looking to the Marker from Dead Space, and the Heart of the World from Darkest Dungeon for inspiration. The eldritch being isn't directly present per se, or rather it is omnipresent and cries out silently to all, but there are nodes, places where it's call can be heard more clearly. Over time these places give rise to cults, change the wildlife and generally make things go all wrong.

You can't destroy it, not completely. You can kill the maddened priests, scatter the congregation, burn back the corruption and smash the structures through which the call is amplified, but it's still there, and it will grow back in time. A coral reef takes time to heal when broken, but it heals all the same.

[Great Order]

Or they can kill it, but it costs them something important. Their sanity, their soul, each other?

Personally I want to throw some Mr Eaten type stuff at my players one time. Some event happens that causes them to steadily lose their minds to better fit the Abomination's goals (Which in the Mr Eaten example is cannibalism, but I could make it anything). Give them as much of an ability to roleplay it out instead of me taking control of the PCs except when they utterly lose it. Maybe have the campaign be them either willingly becoming its servants or choosing to fight off the curse.

[scriver]

I once listened to a dnd podcast about a city where stuff was going down. It had a mine/quarry nearby where mystic stuff was happening. It had something to do with demons. I wasn't paying too much attention, the podcast wad mostly the three players casually faffing about and doing the usual dnd things like starting fights that didn't need to be fights and having giant ferrets for pets and other lolrandom things.

Anyway long story short some guys were trying to bring the demon back or something and it turns out that the land, the soil, the bedrock so to speak, was the demon. And they had been mining it for hundreds of years. The city was built out of it. And suddenly everything was alive.

And you know, that came off as a huge twist in the mood and feeling of the show and really made me pay attention again (poor GM xD ). And I still think that was really cool.