Curing the Monty Haul malady

by Roger E. Moore - FEBRUARY 1984

The following passages were taken and edited from letters received by DRAGON® Magazine in the last year. As you read through them, ask yourself if some of them describe situations that have occurred in your own AD&D? Campaign?
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'My players have characters who have created spells that propel them through time and space at tremendous rates. They have looted the future and brought back devices that could destroy Greyhawk and many of the planes. They own several Battlestars, and they also have a large stock of AT-AT Walkers from The Empire Strikes Back. How do I keep them from destroying Greyhawk and creating an incredibly boring campaign?'
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'One player I know in an AD&D game has a human character who has changed his race and class several times, and is now multiclassed in four classes. He decided his character would kill Orcus, and after that his character became the new prince of the undead, with an unlimited amount of any undead to control, even an unlimited number of liches. The character also has some star destroyers he uses to fly around in space or to destroy planets. This character has a permanent prismatic sphere around him that even moves with him. He says he made it by wishing a couple of thousand times. How does one deal with this kind of player in a campaign?'
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'I have a 65th level cleric character, and want to know if he can get more spells or magic items. Also, how many times can my character use his spells at will (if high-level characters can use several spells at once)?'
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'I knew a character in an AD&D campaign who was able to slay the god Thor by using a push spell on him, knocking him off a tall wall. The hammer Mjolnir did not fall off the wall and the character got it.'
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'Our Dungeon Master has a campaign in which a 4,000th level magic-user/cleric runs a magic shop, in which characters can buy artifacts and relics for the prices listed in the DMG. If a character walks in with the right amount of money, he can get anything. Is it possible to have an NPC like that, and is it advisable?'
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My first reaction upon reading these letters was frank disbelief. AT-AT Walkers marching across Greyhawk? Prince of the undead? Killing Thor with a push spell? 4,000th level characters?
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After reading through a pile of letters like these, however, I remembered AD&D games that I refereed long ago, and characters that I once played. When I began as a DM in 1977, I ran adventures in which the characters met 20 dragons, of all colors, in a single day (by 'random roll,' of course). My group was started on a quest for the Silmarils of Tolkien fame, and met preposterously huge dragons and other gargantuan beasties guarding the various treasures. Other characters in an old campaign of mine were able to find things like Captain America's shield, Excalibur, and other assorted artifacts after cutting their way through the minions of a 30th-level lich to do it.
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As player characters, I've run a minotaur demi-god/demon-prince who attacked other deities on impulse (though not successfully), and once I played a gold dragon who had three female hench-dragons named Farrah, Kate, and Jacqueline. You get the idea. . . . As much as I'd like to whitewash my past abuses of AD&D and D&D® games, it cannot be done (my friends would remind me of them, for one thing). The memories come in handy, however, when reading letters like those above.
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The AD&D game system is a very complicated one. Dungeon Masters have to absorb many rules to run a game well, and the prospect of running a campaign can be very intimidating. Most DMs want to run adventures that keep the players challenged and happy; killing off characters, even when done fair and square, is intimidating, too. Some players will pout for days if their characters get killed or don't get what they want, and this can be rough on everyone. These problems can put lots of pressure on the referee to start altering the scope and balance of the campaign. If my best friend Bob really wants his character to have Odin?s rune wand that badly, well, maybe there's a way . . .
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The hidden problem, of course, is that giveaway games like this pale very quickly. Soon no one feels challenged by anything the DM throws at them, people get bored, and the game folds. Sometimes one or two players are shown exceptional favoritism in a campaign by the DM, and everyone else gets shafted. No matter how you do it, giveaway games like those described above will produce nothing whatsoever but a sorry, frustrating mess.
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Players generally enjoy running characters who are powerful and garner respect from other characters in the game. Few people want weak or incompetent characters in any role-playing system. The motivation to have a strong character sometimes leads to cheating (altering die rolls and ability scores, writing down magic items the character never gained, or DMing one's own characters). Players often put demands upon the DM for less powerful monsters and more treasures, and get caught up in a race for the 'bestest with the mostest.'
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Unfortunately, this only brings the end of the game closer at hand. If the gods can be slain without trouble, what is there left to do? The game was supposed to be fun, but soon it isn't. Is there something wrong with the game?
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No, the game is fine. It takes time to establish balance in an AD&D campaign, and it is frankly impossible for anyone to run a campaign for any length of time without having the game get out of balance at some point or another. In other words, it is normal to have problems somewhat like those described at the start of this article - normal, but not desirable.
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When a gaming group starts out, the chances of the game getting out of balance rise considerably if everyone wants to fiddle with the rules right away. The more alterations, the further out of whack the game goes. By the time everyone is aware of the problem, it is far too late to change anything without dumping the campaign and starting completely over - with first-level characters, and using the rules as they are before you start altering anything.
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'What about my 65th level cleric?' Well, either the cleric goes or the game goes; the game can exist without the cleric, but the cleric can?t continue to exist without the game, so . . .
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The value in starting over is that now everyone has at least some idea of how the game works (and how it isn't supposed to work). The sour taste of a runaway campaign makes players that much more reluctant to repeat the mistake again. Second campaigns are generally more balanced than their predecessors, and most players I've known (myself included) have found them more fun to play in.
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Not everyone may get tired of a Monty Haul campaign at the same time. A gaming group may split up into ultra-level gamers and those who begin, with a fresh campaign and characters. It usually seems to happen that the group starting over again will acquire more game-players than the other group, and the Monty Haul group will dwindle in membership. The willingness to start over again is a mark of maturity and flexibility, and this will attract players who admire and practice those qualities.
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'But I like playing high-level characters!' So do I, but I find that building a character up to high level is more entertaining when starting from the lower levels and working him up by the rules. Characters run in this manner are more believable, more colorful, and have more interesting personalities than those slapped together in a Monty Haul campaign; their flair and liveliness make them more fun to play. The minotaur demi-god character I used long ago was not as much fun to play as my 5thlevel fighter/7th-level thief gnome character, Cyragnome de Bergerac. Cyragnome is obnoxious, speaks with an outrageous French accent, and gives everyone who meets him severe heartburn. The minotaur just hacked and killed. Dull, dull, dull.
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When I suggest starting over again and using the rules as they are, I am not saying that everyone should play only 'official' AD&D games. All AD&D and D&D gamers eventually develop peculiar systems that they use in their campaigns with reasonable effect, though such systems (like critical hit tables, new monsters and magic items, new character classes and races, and so forth) are not official at all.
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However, the more closely one works with the rules and the more often they are used, the better one understands how they work together in the game. In time, one can judge whether a particular rule change will throw a campaign out of balance or whether it will (for the players concerned) improve the enjoyment of the game. Understanding the rules and knowing them is the key to designing a game that keeps DM and player alike happy.
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There is no crime in letting a campaign get out of control. The only crime comes in not learning from one's own mistakes. The best DMs and players are those who don't claim to be perfect, and who look for ways to improve the game for everyone's benefit. A fresh campaign may be the answer you?re looking for. It makes a pleasant change from killing gods with a push spell.

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT 4TH EDITION D&D EXPERIENCE 2008

1. Character roles are more clearly defined.

Everyone who’s played D&D knows that there are roles for each character – some characters “tank”, some characters are “artillery”, etc. 4^th Edition defines those roles into four types – controller, defender, leader, and striker. Controllers (like wizards) deal with large amounts of enemies at once, favoring offense over defense. Defenders (like fighters and paladins) are the front-line characters that have great defensive abilities and good melee offense. Leaders (like clerics and warlords) are good at aiding other members of the party by healing, inspiring, or protecting them. Strikers (like rangers, rogues, and warlocks) deal large amounts of damage to single targets at one time and quickly move about the battlefield. Most adventuring parties consist of at least one character of each of the roles.

2. Powers give you more combat options.

Clerics chant prayers, wizards incant spells, and fighters attempt exploits. These are all examples of powers – your suite of combat options. Three power sources – arcane, divine, and martial – are presented in the Player’s Handbook. Each character class draws abilities from one of these power sources: clerics and paladins use divine powers (prayers), warlocks and wizards use arcane powers (spells), and fighters, rangers, rogues, and warlords use martial powers (exploits).

You get a number of powers based on your character’s level. Powers can be used at-will, once per encounter, or once per day depending on the power.

TIP: Use your at-will powers instead of using basic attacks. They’ll frequently do more than just a modest amount of damage to one enemy.

3. Attacker rolls against a static defense.

In 4^th Edition, you have 4 defense values – Armor Class, Fortitude, Reflex, and Will. The attacker chooses an attack, rolls 1d20, adds the attack bonus, and calls out the result against the appropriate defense. The defenses are all static numbers, just like Armor Class was in 3^rd Edition. Attack actions involve a “to hit” roll against any and all targets, so a power that targets all enemies within 1 square requires a separate attack roll against each enemy affected.

TIP: If you make an attack against multiple targets, you don’t roll damage for each target – just roll that once. It’s best when you attack multiple targets to roll damage first, and then roll your attacks.

4. Standard, move, and minor actions.

Each time it’s your turn, you get one standard, one move, and one minor action. Standard actions are usually attacks, move actions are usually used to move, and minor actions are little things like drawing a weapon or opening a door. You can always exchange a standard action for a move action or minor action, or a move action for a minor action. There are also free actions, which take almost no time or effort, such as dropping a held item or talking. You can take free actions during your turn or anyone else’s turn, and as many as you like (within reason).

There’s another category of actions called triggered actions – these include opportunity actions (like opportunity attacks) and immediate actions (like a readied action). Your DM can tell you more about those should you need them.

5. Healing gets an overhaul.

Hit points still measure your ability to stay in the fight, but healing’s no longer just the burden of one character anymore. Each character has a certain number of healing surges. Once during each encounter, you can take a standard action called a second wind; this gives you a certain amount of hit points back equal to your healing surge value and gives you a +2 bonus to all your defenses until the start of your next turn. You then tick off one of your healing surges for the day. Some powers (like some cleric prayers) will also heal you your healing surge value, and you’ll tick off your healing surges for them as well. When you run out of healing surges, you’ll want to take an extended rest. If you’re outside of combat, you can take a short rest and tick off the healing surges you need to heal up damage.

TIP: If you’ve been knocked down a few hit points and can’t decide what to do when it’s your turn, taking a second wind action is a good idea.

6. Short and extended rests.

Resting’s now divided into two groups – short and extended. A short rest lasts 5 minutes, and is a long enough time for you to regain your encounter powers and use healing surges to heal up. An extended rest is akin to “camping” and lasts 6 hours. After an extended rest, you’re fully healed, you have a full complement of healing surges, you have your daily powers back, and you reset your action points to 1.

TIP: It’s good to take an extended rest when some members in the group are down to about 1 healing surge remaining, or everyone has used all their daily powers.

7. Attack!

Attacks are divided up into a few different types. Melee attacks are those you make usually when you’re adjacent to your target. Ranged attacks can be made at any distance up to the maximum range of the attack; however, if you take a ranged attack next to an enemy you provoke an opportunity attack against you. Close attacks affect an area starting with squares adjacent to you; these attacks don’t provoke an opportunity attack. Area attacks usually affect an area at range; these attacks do provoke opportunity attacks.

Most of the time when you take an attack, you’ll use one of your powers. However, there are some times when you’ll use a basic attack – just a regular old swing of the sword or shot from the bow. These attacks are less powerful than using powers, but they can get the job done. You’ll use a basic attack when you’re charging, making opportunity attacks, or when you use certain powers.

8. Action points give you an extra action.

You begin each adventure with 1 action point, and you can get another one for every 2 encounters that you complete (called a milestone). You can spend 1 action point per encounter to take one extra action on your turn. It can be a standard, move, or minor action.

When you take an extended rest, your action points reset back to 1.

TIP: Make sure to spend action points at least once every other encounter (as often as you earn them), since you can only spend one per encounter.

9. Movement is quick and easy.

Each character has a speed listed in squares. One 1-inch square equals one five-foot square in the game world. When you take a move action, you can move up to the indicated number of squares. Moving from one square to another, even diagonally, costs 1 square of speed. Sometimes terrain will slow you down, costing you more than 1 square of speed – this is called difficult terrain.

Moving away from an enemy adjacent from you usually provokes an opportunity attack. However, you can also use a move action to shift; this lets you move one square without suffering an opportunity attack from adjacent enemies.

TIP: If you need to get somewhere fast, you can run as a move action. This gives you +2 speed for your move, but you grant any attackers combat advantage until the beginning of your next turn.

10. Saving throws are straightforward.

Sometimes your character will be hit by an ongoing effect, like taking poison damage or being immobilized. When this happens you’ll usually get to make a saving throw to remove the effect at the end of your turn. Saving throws are simple – just roll 1d20. If you roll a 10 or higher, you’ll end the effect. If you roll a 9 or lower, the effect will usually continue until you have to make another saving throw at the end of your next turn. Some characters have bonuses that can be applied to certain types of saving throws, and some powers grant modifications to saving throws as well.

11. Durations are easy to manage.

Most effects that have durations (usually imparting a condition on the target) last either until the target makes a saving throw to ward it off, or until the end of the next turn of the attacker that caused the nasty effect. A few effects have durations that last through the entire encounter. No more tracking rounds to determine when your effect ends!

12. Reach (usually) isn’t as threatening.

Reach (possessed by some monsters and weapons) is only “active” on the attacker’s turn. Otherwise, attackers with reach function just like those without reach. This is usually most relevant when determining the area a character or monster threatens.

TIP: Watch out for the few creatures with threatening reach – they can threaten more than just squares adjacent to them.

13. A trio of “c” rules you might want to know.

· Combat Advantage – This gives you a +2 bonus to attack rolls when you’re flanking, or when the target is under one of a number of conditions (dazed, surprised, etc.).

· Cover – If an enemy has cover, you get a -2 penalty to attack rolls against it. Your allies don’t provide cover, but enemies do. There’s also no penalty for making ranged attacks into melee.

· Charging – This is a standard action. Move up to your speed, and make a basic attack. You get a +1 bonus on the attack roll. You have to move at least 2 squares from your starting position, and you must charge to the nearest square from which you can attack your target. You can’t charge if the nearest square is occupied, but you can charge over difficult terrain (it just costs you extra movement).

D&D Society - Be Aware of Demographics

High-level characters don’t just spring into existence overnight. It takes an exceptional person just to survive the rigors of an adventuring life, and characters who make it to the top should be both rare and famous.


Just how rare are high-level characters? Let’s assume, for purposes of this example, that the minimum requirement for an adventurer is having an ability score of 15 or better in a prime requisite in one of the four character classes (Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence, and Wisdom), a Constitution score of at least 9, and no other score lower than an 8. About one person in 10 meets these requirements if ability scores are rolled using the standard method of rolling 3d6 once for each ability score. (If your campaign uses an alternate method for rolling ability scores, what you’re really doing is making sure your PCs fall into the top 10%, non-adventurers are still assumed to use the standard method). Now, let’s assume that out of every group of adventures only half actually make it to the next level (the remainder either die, retire, or just haven’t yet accumulated enough experience to advance). This last assumption is an oversimplification, of course, but a little arithmetic produces some instructive results:


There is only one 10th level character in a general population of 5,000. The actual numbers are summarized in Table 1.


An 18th level character of any class is truly a one-in-a-million individual.


Only .2% of the population (1 in 500) qualifies to be a paladin. Other subclasses with strict ability score requirements (such as bards, rangers, and druids) are equally rare.


Keep these numbers in mind when creating NPCs for your campaign. Your world not only becomes more believable if it isn’t overrun with super characters, but your players have a greater sense of accomplishment when they realize just what they have achieved. Be sure to keep important NPCs alive when possible—it can take a generation to replace a high-level character.

Think on an Epic Scale

It’s easy to think of low-level characters as people who have dangerous jobs. Depending on your campaign style, low-level player characters might frequently be called upon to do heroic things, and well-played characters often have goals more complex than merely slaying monsters and accumulating treasure, such as social recognition, romance, political power, and the like. No matter how well-developed a low-level character is, the character’s chief goal essentially remains making a living and surviving to enjoy the fruits of his labor.


High-level PCs, as the proceeding section on demographics shows, are the foremost heroes of their age. They are the people who bards sing about and who poets write about. Stories of their adventures are told and retold for generations after the PCs are gone. Whether they like it or not, the PCs are larger than life. They have larger-than-life friends, larger-than-life foes, and larger-than-life problems. Practical details such as where the character’s next meal is coming from or how the hero is going to get armor or weapons repaired become petty when compared to the real issues of the character’s life.

Table 1:

Demographics
General Population	Character Level	Approx. No. in 1,000,000
10	1 1st	133,120
20	1 2nd	66,560
40	1 3rd	33,280
80	1 4th	16,640
160	1 5th	8,320
320	1 6th	4,160
640	1 7th	2,080
1,380	1 8th	1,040
2,560	1 9th	512
5,120	1 10th	256
10,240	1 11th	128
20,480	1 12th	64
40,960	1 13th	32
81,920	1 14th	16
163,840	1 15th	8
326,680	1 16th	4
655,360	1 17th	2
1,310,720	1 18th	1

THE SERPENTS’ GRAVEYARD

By Ari Marmell, art by James Zhang, cartography by Mike Schley - Dragon October 2007

The yuan-ti are truly alien in their practices, and their methods of burial prove no exception. While the yuan-ti of the Vanguard have abandoned many of the traditions of their race in order to focus their veneration on Sertrous, their burial practices are not among them. Here, in this cemetery for the honored dead, they observe many of the same traditions, and organize their graveyard in the same fashion, as other yuan-ti.

Stepping through the portal, you find yourself between a pair of towering trees, both long dead. Perhaps 50 yards ahead of you, an imposingly steep hill rises like a blister from the earth. From where you stand, you can see at least two stone stairways built into its sides between the compass points. Strange stone shapes, roughly rectangular, lay embedded in the hill in perfect lines, radiating downward from the crown. Atop the hill stands a great sculpture of four rearing cobras with hoods spread. Each cobra stares outward in all four cardinal directions. Several dead trees break the otherwise perfect symmetry of the hill.

CHOOSING TECHNOLOGY

A campaign should have a logical and consistent level of technology. The rules assume a roughly medieval tech base, with steel and sailing common, but few clockworks and no gunpowder. Many fantasy settings play with this assumption, adding steam engines, gear-based machines, wind power, flintlocks, modern clothing, advanced architecture designs or even giant spring-driven robots. Others prefer to maintain a classic level of technology, with bronze or iron the metal of choice and steel unknown, or a prehistoric Stone Age technology.

In some cases, changing a game’s tech level has game consequences. For example, a game set in the Bronze Age is unlikely to have cold-iron weapons, making creatures with damage reduction vulnerable to that material particularly powerful. Similarly, a game eliminating crossbows as too high-tech removes the most effective ranged weapon for sorcerers and wizards. To maintain game balance, replace anything eliminated with a lower-tech equivalent (ash wood for cold iron, atl-atls for crossbows, and so on).

A consistent level of technology need not be a uniform level of technology. You can set up a campaign in numerous ways so a particular group or region has a higher tech base than others. The technology could depend on natural resources not available elsewhere (such as needing particular metals or minerals). It could be new to a region, and thus not have spread too extensively yet. Isolated groups can simply have a different tech base because they don’t trade or communicate much with outsiders (an isolated group having a lower tech base rather than a higher one is just as easy to justify). Come up with some reason why differing tech levels exist if you want to maintain them, however. Otherwise, players are sure to carry high tech to lower tech areas and set up shop making and selling it.

When deciding on one or more tech levels, look at what you can easily support. Unless writing up dozens of higher-tech gadgets sounds like fun, stick with a technology level you have rules to define. Luckily, rules for everything from the Stone Age to futuristic technology are available, so you will have little difficulty getting rules for what you want. The second potential problem is players who wish to push the level of technology higher than you’re comfortable with. Many players, when faced with flintlocks, decide their gnome inventor should be able to invent fully automatic machine rifles for instance.

If you allow these kinds of advances, all you need is to modify some set of rules to cover invention. Spell research and Craft rules are both likely candidates, assigning an effective “spell level” or Craft (inventor) DC and gold piece value to various designs. You’re well within your rights, however, to forbid major advances in technology. Although things advance quite quickly in our modern world, progress is much slower at lower technology levels. The prevalence and power of magic also draws resources away from technology. (Why would a noble spend his money on researching guns when he can just hire wizards?)

Another option is to have the trappings of a more advanced technology without actually advancing the overall tech level. For example, if you want to allow flintlock firearms, you may not want the rest of the advances present in real-world history during the period when flintlocks were common. Rather than decide your campaign has all the technology flintlocks need, you may opt to have the weapons be special magical devices built by dwarves. Instead of black powder, the weapons use a powdered magic rock (boompowder) only dwarves know how to mine, and the barrels may need to be made of adamantine to withstand the force of the boompowder charge. Not only does this choice avoid real-world advances of chemistry and metallurgy, it allows limitations of the weapons to a few numbers and specific regions. (Also, the weapons logically wouldn’t work in an antimagic field, since boompowder is magic — giving high-level wizards some defense against the technology.)

Similarly, the role of technology can be filled by obviously magical devices. Bracelets that tell time, wands of magic missile that can be used by anyone, amulets that allow those holding them to communicate over great distances, and magic books that store and manipulate information can all replace watches, guns, cell phones, and computers. In fact, you could create a campaign world with no advanced technology per se, but full of magical equivalents. Such a game might have a very modern or futuristic look, with democracy spreading (driven by the fact most peasants don’t need to work all day nor require a lord’s direct protection, and information can be freely and quickly disseminated) and kingdoms forced to use diplomacy to settle their differences to avoid the use of weapons of magical destruction. This campaign could follow the model of anything from gritty noir detective films (with hard-luck adventurers hired by fat merchants to find their missing torch-singer wives, who just happen to be cultists) to cyberpunk games, with mega-guilds wielding more power than kingdoms and golem-like replacement limbs commonplace.

Finally, you could opt to have just a few pieces of high tech exist and treat them like rare magic items. Indeed, characters in worlds with a single laser pistol may well treat it like a minor artifact — a wand used by anyone that cannot be dispelled. Such items might come from dimensional travelers from other realities, crashed starships from other worlds, or leftovers from advanced civilizations that destroyed themselves. As long as the items are rare and so advanced that they can’t be duplicated, they should have little more impact than powerful magic items.

CAMPAIGN VIGNETTES: TECHNOLOGY ZONES

The technology zones campaign lets the GM and players both play with higher-tech items without having them run rampant throughout the campaign world. Essentially, different areas of the campaign have differing maximum levels of technology, and powerful magic from the gods keeps it that way. Most games may take place in a middle-zone that follows traditional tech guidelines, but for a change of pace, players may have adventures with clockwork robots, primitive stone spears, or even plasma rifles.

Thus in the primitive jungles of evil humanoids, nothing more advanced than Stone Age technology functions. Steel weapons simply cannot be brought in (striking an impenetrable barrier and just staying behind if someone teleports there), and advanced weapons don’t function. The humanoids’ deities wish their worshipers to grow stronger by pitting themselves against the environment with little aid. The primitive humanoids aren’t much of a threat to more advanced kingdoms (though they may make occasional raids), but more advanced nations are unwilling to march into the jungles without their technology to aid them, keeping the humanoids safe.

Most lands are stuck at the default fantasy medieval tech level, though the god of one land may allow steam engines while another encourages clockworks. Yet if these things are taken to lower-technology lands, they simply stop working. Dwarves have mountain kingdoms with extremely advanced clockwork and steam technologies, but cannot progress beyond this level of tech, leading perhaps to crude tanks and robots that can’t leave the dwarven homelands. Races living in the subterranean kingdoms may have access to psionic technologies that don’t work elsewhere, as well as biotech based on breeding specialized creatures to serve as weapons (acid-spitting slugs and living knives), armor, and appliances — but only at certain depths.

Adventures in this world often include foes who have a home-turf advantage. PCs become experts at dealing without their own tech and getting their hands on local devices quickly. The PCs may even be exceptions to these rules. They could be the chosen of the gods, allowed to carry any tech anywhere; or they might get hold of minor artifacts, such as a flintlock rifle that works in all technology zones.

THE EVIL CAMPAIGN

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One obvious idea for an unusual campaign with a strong theme is to play evil vs. good, with the PCs taking the roles of villains and the GM running the heroic forces trying to oppose them. The game-mechanical benefits for a different feel are obvious: PCs are suddenly fighting creatures classically defined as good and allying themselves with those normally reserved as antagonists. This sort of campaign allows the GM to access a whole range of foes the players may never have fought against. Additionally, plotting such a game seems straightforward: if the PCs are the bad guys, they need little incentive to steal, raid, and kill — they are, after all, evil.

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Evil campaigns have numerous pitfalls, however; so many, actually, that most players and GMs consider them a universally bad idea. A number of GM’s guides and articles have looked at the main arguments for and against evil characters in roleplaying game campaigns. The most common conclusions are that evil PCs should be avoided altogether, or that evil characters can work for one-shot or short-run scenarios but cannot be integrated into long running campaigns without creating ill will and player strife.

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If players are interested in exploring the heroic fantasy genre, heroes and heroic actions should be at the heart of roleplaying games. Certainly, there are a number of heroic games on the market, and their popularity suggests a fair number of gamers agree with this idea. Yet a number of games are not as obviously designed around a heroic ideal. In fact, books dealing with some of the least heroic creatures, vampires, seem most popular. Obviously, many vampire games are based on long-term campaigns filled with PCs that could safely be described as evil without resulting in endless player conflict. The reason evil PCs don’t regularly disrupt the darker games in which they are common is that all the players expect other PCs to be evil. With that level of acceptance of evil within a game, a character dedicated to wiping out all foulness everywhere might actually be more disruptive and likely to result in hard feelings.

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Like so many problems in long-term roleplaying game campaigns, the main problem with evil characters in heroic settings seems to be one of clashing expectations. If most of the players want a game that revolves around noble characters and heroic actions, a single player who prefers grim intrigue and treachery even among his allies will be unhappy, make the other players unhappy, or both. A good GM can avoid many of these problems by outlining what he’s looking for in his game in advance and have players go over their desires as well. Not everyone may be able to agree on how they want the game to run, but if the issue has been discussed, the chances of the game running smoothly are much higher.

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Even the question of evil characters may sometimes be resolved in this way. Most players who enjoy heroic games don’t want to deal with another player stealing from them or slipping poison into their drinks. Yet not every evil character is a thief or a murderer, and not every player who prefers them is looking to do his companions wrong. Some players want to be free to treat NPCs harshly, but assume their character is still human enough to have the PCs be his friends or smart enough to realize the usefulness a group that will defend you. Often, the evil anti-heroes so popular in fantasy fiction fit this second category, with loyalties and codes of conduct no less rigid than their good counterparts.

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Of course, some players really do want their characters to be blackhearts who will happily kill, maim, or enslave their fellows if it gains them even a minor momentary advantage. Characters of this kind are more like sociopaths than anti-heroes and should rightly be banned from any game not specifically designed to accommodate them. Yet their evil does not so much make them undesirable as characters, rather it’s their lack of consideration to other party members and PCs. In many ways, a tremendously narrow-minded crusader for good who insists on everyone obeying his gods and following his moral code is just as disruptive to long-term group play, and should also be disallowed if he causes problems among the players.

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In a healthy, long-running roleplaying game campaign, no one player tries to have fun with his character at the expense of other players — even if his character is evil.

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The second main concern for running evil games is how to handle acts of evil and player discomfort with describing unpleasant acts. While some of this can come up in any campaign, some of it also must be handled through campaign goals. Evil characters need not be vile. They can just be greedy or unprincipled, and no more willing to resort to torture than the good guys. A single evil character can actually be a realistic ally, an individual who lacks the morals of his fellow, but otherwise agrees with their goals.

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Evil campaigns are sufficiently uncomfortable for many players that you should carefully discuss your plans for one before doing any other work on it. Since most roleplaying game supplements are geared towards good characters, you actually set out to do a lot of work to run such a game. If even one player is unhappy with the idea, giving up the idea for something more traditional is best. Even if all players seem comfortable initially, your job is to make sure they don’t become too uncomfortable during the course of the campaign. If anyone thinks an evil character or game has gone too far, it’s time to reconsider running it. If you just want access to traditionally good-aligned creatures to use as foes, try setting up a world with corrupting influences that can change good creatures to evil, providing him with black unicorns and fallen angles to use as villains against good or neutral PCs.