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Stereo typing the drow. Reminds me of the time my dwarf got upset because the party tried to get him to do some smithy stuff. "You're not wrong but it's the principle of the thing!"

Rule #1 i set up for evil campaigns - you can be a dicks, just not to each other. Party comes first.

My group is playing all non-good aligned characters in Tyranny of Dragons. We are saving the world because it’s where we keep our stuff.

I thought I knew how this was going to go. Then came the paper beards on sticks.

I once got kicked out of an evil campaign. I guess the word just wasn't ready for Gnomseph Stalin.

I occasionally trick evil characters to do good when they get really annoying with their murderous rampages. "i kill the homeless man" ... "he is revealed to be a serial killer, the town is super happy with you and they have a parade in your honor"

This is extremely relevant to me. My party surprisingly went neutral evil across the board and I was not prepared.

Evil D&D is like playing GTA.

How to be evil in D&D...get a goatee.

The sad thing is sometimes it's not some stranger who's into the sick shit, sometimes it's somebody you've known or thought you've known for years. Evil campaigns bring that out so beware.

I am currently playing an evil campaign with friends as a fallen paladin,.i am smarter than I am strong though so I have been planting seeds to become a religious leader of pope-like statuses so I can call the king a demon worshiper and launch a crusade against the kingdom it self

I'm glad we can agree that yes, starting race wars is evil.

An idea that just popped into my head is for a PC who is the party's resident cook (obviously as a supplement to whatever class he was). But he also considers all "lesser" races to be perfectly viable ingredients. He's not a cannibal - he's very insistent on that - but so long as it isn't a human or orc or whatever his own race is, they are fair game. So every time the party kills an enemy - whether it be a dire wolf, a goblin, or an elf - he sweeps through the bodies, collecting livers or eyeballs. If any of his party members happen to be of a "lesser" race (read: any race that the cook isn't), he'll assure them that they aren't on the menu. "You don't cook the family dog. You don't cook pets. You don't cook the horse. We're perfectly fine. Don't worry about it." He's an obvious racist against other sapient species, but it's not like he _hates_ them. They just aren't..._people_ in the same way his own kind are. Part of every chance where the party makes camp is the other PCs trying to decide if the cook's current "dish" is something they can stomach eating.

this is the evil timeline. Damn it, KZfaq, I'm in that part again.

I just realized that a well-balanced evil-aligned party would make a great gang.

I always liked the bit from the narration at the start of The Chronicles of Riddick -" If we are to survive, a new balance must be found. In normal times, evil would be fought by good. But in times like these, well, it should be fought by another kind of evil." Sometimes the evil party can do what the good party cannot.

Community references! Cool. Cool cool cool

This is like, the best D&D show on youtube, ever. Keep the great work guys.

Dude running an evil campaign and a big damn hero quest campaign at the same time only to have both groups meet for a PvP battle would be so awesome

I think the biggest problem people have with evil PCs,campaigns or evil as a concept in D&D is that it really doesn't take much at all to be evil. All you need to do in order to be evil is to be ok with killing people for money. That's it,that's all it takes to be evil. Characters don't have to be comic villains or anything like that,they can be people who're nice to hang around with,but they're simply killers so that makes them evil. Possibly my favorite evil PC I've ever played was Half-Orc Elderitch knight/tempest cleric who was basically shaman of Gruumsh. He had his own code of honor that he refused to break,he embraced the brutality of the orcish blood that was within him and he would not take prisoners in combat and he absolutely loved combat. He looked after his party members,made sure to sometimes heal everyone including himself with mass healing word but was mainly there to fuck shit up with spells and weapons. His more honorable side was obvious when he was in a situation where he was ordered to execute someone and he simply untied the poor bastard,threw one of his extra weapons at the prisoners feet,ordered him to pick it up and then just fucking destroyed the guy in a duel. Sure he was straight up evil,but he was still somehow understandable character and not some completely inhumane monster who nobody could get behind and as a result other players really liked to play with this character in their party. The characters themselves also kinda understood where he was coming from,even if they rarely agreed with his methods,but he was just one of those guys who was a valuable ally to have so we never had to stop the game and ask ''why would this party have this guy with them?'' like you sometimes need to do with poorly made evil characters.

Just want to say thanks for making these videos. Really helps new DMs like me understand how they can improve their game.

I love hearing your stories about games you two have played makes me so happy. It reminds me of conversations my players have with each other after a good session. It will never fail to put a smile on my face. Another great video, thanks guys!

Can you guys do a show about how to start out as a DM? Literally like DMing for beginners.

This is quickly becoming my favorite channel for DnD advice and stories! i love the humor, the production value, the dialogue between you two, the great advice and insight, and the outtakes at the end! Keep up the great work! Also, i live in Texas, let's get a game started lol

Oh my god this was by far the best intro yet! I was dying at the jingle!

"I then suggest your goblins come forth fully formed from the muck of creation ready to don armor and attack the party" You mean gnolls then? Literally demon spawn.

I had a group that always built their character in a way so that they could kill each other. We didn’t shy away from characters fighting if it came to it. More then anything we enjoying making battle royal scenarios outside of the game as a break

I had a "Evil" character once that viewed himself good... his deal was that he was a Telepath Psion (3.5 ed), and his high end goal was to find a way to manifest a mass "Ego seed" power onto the world, "for how can there be war, unhappiness or evil, if everyone is me?"

"And I even kick the dog!" Oh, that's definitely the straw that broke the camels back.

HOLY SHIT THAT WAS A COMMUNITY REFERENCE I LOVE YOU GUYS , *SUBSCRIBED*

Only watched for a few seconds and already loving the video! Really like the Troy and Abed reference!

I'd love to run two parallel campaigns where each party acts as the antagonists for the other campaign - perhaps not necessarily one evil campaign and one good, but the parties are trying to be one step ahead of the others

You guys have been helping me so much with D&D. I started playing this last year and I told my buddy who has been the DM for the campaign we've been playing through that I'm interested in one day being a DM for our group. He thinks it's a great idea as it would give him a chance to take a break. Finding your channel has been fantastic and this video solidifies that because I would love to do an evil campaign. Well, I have a story idea for an evil campaign and getting your opinions on this particular subject helps a lot. Thanks for helping future DMs like myself. Keep up the good work.

Thanks to everyone for getting us to 10k+ subscribers! You're the real heroes!

This episode is awesome! Thanks for posting!!

>Dat intro. Glorious.

After years of watch these videos this one still has the absolute best intro ever!

My group is an evil intrigue based game and we agreed ahead of time that pvp wouldn't happen. But as we're also in the power gathering lay low segment of the game, we act a lot like a normal group of heroes on the surface at least. Behind the scenes, we do awful things to random people for the sake of gathering info, removing people who know too much about us, obtaining corpses for my necromancy, and collecting powerful and evil artifacts for our personal use.

omg that intro lmfao

You guys made Troy and Abed proud with that intro!

Best game I was ever in was an evil fantasy pirate game. I would recommend the concept to others, if full-on PvP is the accepted paradigm. Everyone is forced to kind of stick together as crew members and the isolation of travel creates good opportunities for intrigue, both by way of alliance and infighting. The rank structure keeps order (to a degree,) and by the nature of its small and loose scale it can be enforced through either brains or brawn, allowing all characters regardless of law/chaos affiliation to have a place in it. The campaign ran weekly (sometimes more often, as we were all so engaged in it we would do cram sessions if everybody could get together) for 6 months,not a week went by without one character murdering another, and as predicted in the video ended in TPS, but satisfyingly. Again, it might not seem so at first glance, but it is a great concept for the type of players who enjoy politics and intrigue, while allowing plenty of room for the more murderhobo-minded, as long as they are down with the possibility of being taught a fatal lesson if they get to big for their britches.

I'm a new DM at the card shop I go to. You have helped me so much in creating my own world and going through ideas for adventures and various things. Thank you.

Patch (my Drow pc) was able to resist the voice of Lolth growing up because of Corellon's protection. Luckily, he escaped the Underdark at a young age.

I actually don't think necromancy needs to be evil. I once played a necromancer who came from a society that was very well off because their undead workforce and army. People were just aware that when they died their body would be used to better help others, and that to do otherwise was a waste. Reanimated fallen people was a chance for them to avenge their death, and reanimating her enemies was a chance for them to repent. I get her alignment as good because she believed it was right.

That beginning was so amazing.

"One bad day away from evil..." So you effectively made Drow Chill? -huffs joker gas-

One of the ways that my game with the DM where we all play evil characters and I'm a mind flayer that you know there is a little backstabbing us but the other part of it is that at the same time you know our DM always finds a way to be able to be like well so you know since you guys are such bad asses you know once again somebody needs to hire all of you

I ran an assassin's guild campaign for two years. The players were devious, cruel, and competitive. Multiple factions within the guild used and manipulated them, creating great moments at the table. In the end, they realized they were more powerful united and overthrew the reigning factions. Providing structure to the player's darkest impulses keeps them functioning as a party.

In my country there is a game called Tormenta RPG and they have a set of NPCs who are called "The Group of Evil" which are 4 adventurers who have been cursed by a mage after a mission and their souls are connected together, so while they hate and despite each other, they can't kill each other or let them be at risk because one of the members would randomly die and there is no scrying that can show who is connected to who. This is a very easy way to keep a group of evil adventurers together.

I have to say this was helpful for me running an evil game for my party. We are still using 3.5 edition and they are bringing about the cleansing wars in darksun. It has been a blast so far.

I was definitely not expecting the Community reference. TOP notch.

More episodes of "Jim and Pruit Bein' Evil" please

So glad I found this channel

I think it's great fun to run these quests as a part 1. Meaning that the players take an evil plan far enough to set the wheels in motion then turn these high level evil doers over to the DM so they can be used as the primary antagonists in a new quest to foil their plot. It gives the players a real sense of inclusion in the whole story having created and played both sides of a huge campaign.

My favorite alignment? CHAOTIC NEUTRAL!!

how can fans play some D&D with you guys? love this channel.

I'm currently playing a Lawful Evil Paladin of Conquest (they think she is an Order Paladin) in a mostly Good party. As a Zariel Teifling, she leans into the LE nature by seeking greater power: "The world is messed up and I just need to rule it" is her mantra. As far as she is concerned, she needs to instill order as a greater good calling for her acts of subjugation. Basically, I am playing her as an anti-villian. We talked about it, of course, so everyone knows that she will become an NPC as soon as her machinations, including taking mental notes on the other party members, lead her goals to diverge from those of the party.

That intro was wonderful

My gaming group was playing Pathfinder game where all of us was on death row and each of us was saved by a Blue Dragon to do the dungeon crawler that he can't do for him in exchange for our lives. He would want the gold and jewelry but he had no need for trinkets.

(A Good Adventurer & a Evil Adventurer walk into a tavern...) EA: "...and they saw everything. So we really had no choice but to kill them, too." GA: "That's messed up, man." EA: "Oh, please. Your group burned an entire village to the ground." GA: "That was an accident. You guys burn villages all the time." EA: "The same one, actually. Multiple times. It's like our holiday." GA: "I thought they seemed weirdly okay about the whole thing." EA: "My point is: Does morality REALLY matter when the people get hurt no matter what?" GA: "It just feels...I dunno. Morbid. Cruel." EA: (raises eyebrow) "We live in a world of brain-suckers, floating eyeballs who shoot laserbeams, devils who enslave your soul when you die, and necromancers who take what's left of your body for gods-know-what." (takes a long chug of beer) EA: "We're not "cruel"...we're building character." GA: (shakes head) "I got the bill." EA: (pats shoulder) "Thanks, pally." (Evil Adventurer leaves the tavern) (Good Adventurer waits for the bartender for several minutes...then looks over the counter) GA: "Oh, for f..."

A lot of the time nowadays, you hear a lot of people saying that "good and evil don't really exist." I vehemently disagree with this. I think most people just haven't heard a satisfactory definition of what good and evil are. I've spent a lot of time thinking about this, and by my understanding, "good" is actively seeking to both protect the lives of others, as well as, in more everyday situations, seeking to improve their quality, that is the average level of happiness an individual experiences over an extended period of time. Then, "evil," conversely, would be, for whatever reason, seeking to either snuff out the lives of those around you, or just making their lives worse through abuse and common cruelty, usually to make you feel better about yourself. Neutrality also exists, and is simply being largely indifferent either way to the wellbeing of those around you. That's how I would define it. A lot of the confusion I think arises from people assuming that a situation is black and white, that there is a single right course of action to take, and acting conversely to that is automatically evil. In most real situations though, things are more complicated than that, as there are factors on both the "good" and "evil" side of any given choice motivating you to act one way or another. As a general rule, ask for a second opinion when and where it's possible, but if it isn't, either because you're alone or because you're under pressure to act quickly, just go with your gut, and you'll usually do okay.

I'd like to do an interesting sort of evil campaign, one with a party full of lawful &/or neutral evils, teaming up (at least initially) to take out a chaotic evil. Like, you got a couple players that want to take over the world, one that wants to live a life of luxury & own a harem, one that wants to kill everybody else off but her family, etc -- and the antagonist you have to defeat is a nihilistic entity that wants everything in creation destroyed. Obviously, a villain like that who wants to watch the world burn is going to be someone that interferes with everybody else's selfish plans, giving them reason to band together till the threat is eliminated -- before they turn on each other.

I joined a random group for an evil campaign and we were basically trying to build a criminal underground. I was the manhunter (a ranger classed assassin) with my gutter brother (a goblin fighter who was also the ideas guy) and a completely insane warlock. 3/4 of the people in this group were into the idea (3/4 because D&D)

I played in a game with inter-player conflict. Technically I was the only evil character, but it was surprisingly fun, and when the chips were down we united against our enemies.

the evil campaign Way of the Wicked is pretty good, we played the first book and the last act there is just amazing.

i'm 46 seconds in, and all i have to say is i love the community reference!

I'd love to hear your thoughts on Curse of Strahd/DM strategies or how you might run that, anything like this on the horizon?

FUCK YEAH EVIL

OMG I almost died during the intro! Great video!

Playing a Thief Rogue with a good Charisma score gets _really_ interesting in an evil campaign. You're not the best fighter, but you have a _lot_ of dirty tricks, like using magic items, assassination, stealth, intimidation and persuasion, and others. They aren't the strongest and anything, but given the loss of most moral walls, they gain many, _many_ options. Have you guys done a video on Gestalt?

Yo that harmony was on point. Y'all should start a dnd themed acappella group.

I think it's also worth considering the Godfather/Goodfellas type of campaign. I'd say the mafia organizations in Godfather and Goodfellas are definitely evil in the way they do things, but their end goal or purpose is not to "make people suffer" or to cause harm, it's to further the prosperity or increase the power of a given family/group. As we see in The Godfather part II, this kind of organization can do good things (helping an old lady whose landlord wants to kick her out), but in evil ways (by threatening to murder the landlord).

I love the evil campaign I'm playing in. As the usual DM of the group, it is a lot of fun when I get to play in the evil game run by one of my usual players. My character, Smoke, a teleporting Air Genasi shadow rogue, is a little too fun to play. The mechanic works that I can split away from my shadow, and send it up to 30 feet away as a bonus action away from me. On another turn I can use a bonus to teleport to where my shadow is. This has made for some of the best comedic sneak attack moments, literally teleporting behind someone just to slit their throat and take their money.

considering drow, like a Jaraxle base would work (mercenary lawful neutral type)

Finally, the infamous evil campaign discussed. If I may ask, have you done a video specifically on the different variations of Lycanthropes in the tabletop setting? From the classic tried and true Werewolf to the esoteric wereshark, werebat, werecrocodile or wereraven?

I just pitched an evil campaign to my friends the other day. In our regular game, they've been exhibiting some tendencies toward evil but seem to be holding themselves back. I want to do a campaign where they're working for some sort of evil overlord and they'd be kind of like spies where they are destabilizing the good kingdom and making it ready for invasion. So, they'd be bribing city officials, smuggling high-level people in and out of cities, they'd be murdering agents who turned on them, they'd be smoking out traitors and killing them, murdering farmers and poisoning crops, etc... sounds like lots of fun! :D It could actually very easily be turned around to a military campaign where they're spies... but working for evil seems to be tons of fun.

I will say that one of my favorite ways to engage in an evil campaign is to give it a structure. it very much helps to mitigate that total player suicide issue. I like to set up an initial mission in these instances to establish a party trust that can then develop into more scenarios. one instance that I did was the players were poachers working for a Smugglers and thieves ring who killed exotic animals for expensive magical components. I had them hunting down and slaying a unicorn in a Druids Grove. I find that giving a structure to their Association can also lend itself to interpersonal intrigue. is one of the party members competing with another for advancement within the society? is one party member indebted to the society but plans to leave in opposition to those who are more loyal or dedicated? I've ended up with some really interesting player characters and interactions because of it. and with just a few shifts you can have wildly different organizations and goals and storylines.

'breaking bad trail of darkness'... well that sounds tame.

Hey, I'm not sure about if there already is, but i'd love a video about the Wizard specializations, preferences about building and playing each kind of wizards! (I'm really trying to boost up a Illusionist i'm planning for my next campaign hahaha). Maybe this could be done to other classes path choices as well, pretty sure a roleplaying guide to each type would be helpfull and fun to watch!

Can you do a video on the different realms and plans in D&D explained in a nutshell. Maybe talk about some of the main towns and what kind of crazy things you can find or expect to see when going through these different planes. I'm new to D&D so I can tell I need to get familiar with a lot of history that's already been established.

My group is running an evil Dragonlance/5th Edition story as we speak!

I recently had my players play a party of the guys they are fighting and plot&finish an assassination

How can this be an episode about evil campaigns when that community reference was so good?

I have an idea for a more perhaps acceptable Alignment system. All creatures have alignment (LG, NG, etc), but players start with a Neutral Alignment. Performing Evil deeds will make your net alignment Evil, making good monsters hostile. Being good makes Evil creatures hostile. Same for chaos and laws, but instead of hostility, if you are chaotic, you have advantage on Persuasion checks against Chaotic creatures, and if you are lawful, then the opposite is true.

your out of the abyss campaign sounds insane! I'm always terrified about running an evil campaign for the fear of total derailment.

Ways of the Wicked and Hell's Vengeance both deal with this very well, both are PF but still.

Best opening by far

In my old D&D group in the 90's we had an anti-paladin who was part of our group of "right bastards". He was constantly giving people minor diseases... especially STDs. It was a great group of likeminded evil characters.

I want to do this with the Mines of Phandelver. Just completed the adventure as a player. Thought it would be cool if the players were goblinoids and had to fight off overly rightous paladin-types.

I know I'm late to the party, but I'd like to bring something up - a particular insight into evil-aligned campaigns. Generally, they fall apart pretty quickly, because the players feel the need to backstab each other. I hesitantly joined a gem once, though, that I think represents the greatest kind of Evil campaign. Here's the thing: It ran very similarly to a Good campaign. The players weren't materialistic and greedy. Magic items were distributed to the people that could use them to the best effect. Enemies weren't automatically killed, or even enslaved... though they were always indoctrinated. All of the PCs were as black as souls could be, but they trusted each other largely because their goals did not conflict. The most terrible and hateful alliance was formed between bad men and women because they basically agreed that their alliance would further their personal causes. We all took measures to help ourselves, certainly - but we also all took measures to strengthen each other, because by doing so would advance our own goals. A single bad player could have tipped the balance of the whole game, but nobody did. It was really surreal.

Question: How did you break down the feats for the Vampire PC?

Dat community reference! You should make a review on the D&D community episodes :)

best intro ever

That is genius have have your previous characters go against your evil campaign characters

Wizards are the best class to be evil with. You know why? Everything from spell-combos to just liking to kill people.

I'm currently running an evil campaign and I'm very curious where its going to take the players.

My friends and I are gonna play an evil campaign for holloween

Egg burp. Ha! I am so happy. The stingers are awesome.

Wow such subtle reference. >.>