Let’s all face it. Some days, you come home from work, you’re
grouchy, you haven’t had a good day, and you want to be a stinker.
You feel rude, crude, and socially unacceptable . . . in short, a little
evil. Bare your teeth a little bit. There, that’s the idea. People get like
that in D&D, too. After playing a Paladin for a couple of months, you
can really pick up a feel for an Assassin. Male D&Der’s in particular,
in my experience, feel the urge to get involved in an evil campaign.
Inspiration may be drawn from Satan of Milton’s Paradise Lost, or
from less ethereal sources such as The Wild Bunch, Darth Vader,
007’s latest adversary, or “Jaws”.

Being evil and tough seems to have a lot of machismo, and can
draw quite a bit of respect for you in the game. If the Dungeon Master
is willing, a group could set up a campaign composed solely of evil
characters. Group norms, or rules, need to be discussed to provide
some coherence to the proceedings; some possible norms are discussed below, as well as some notes on setting up such a campaign.

Character classes and races will have to be restricted. No
Rangers, Druids, or Paladins (obviously) should be involved; lawful
evil Monks and neutral evil Bards can be allowed, but may be few in
number. Fighters, Mages, Illusionists, Clerics, Thieves, and Assassins will predominate. I would suggest that the character races be
limited to humans, half-orcs, and Gary Gygax’s version of the halfogre (as discussed in TD #29). <note: the link is to Roger Moore's version>
All other races, even if played evilly,
will likely still hate and be hated by orcs and ogres. The DM may well
plan to set up the campaign in an area where orcs, men, and ogres
live in close (and generally helpful) proximity to each other. They
might all be allied under a powerful ruler. If the central rulership is

neutral evil, then conceivably any evil alignment may be involved,
from lawful to chaotic. The DM should place outlets of the Assassins’
and Thieves’ Guilds near the players’ starting point, and other
high-level NPC’s should be placed to serve as the teachers of the
player characters who are Mages, Fighters, and Clerics. Two or more
evil temples, heavily guarded to protect them from the congregations of the other evil temples, may be in the vicinity.

Being evil can open up whole new opportunities to you that
aren’t possible when you’re good. For example, while pegasi won’t
have anything to do with you, hieracosphinxes will (if bribed,
charmed, or trained). You can replace Fido and blink dog with Fang
the warg, though your food bills will increase. Hired help around the
castle and dungeon becomes much cheaper when goblins and orcs
handle the chores. Those dreams of the all-night orgies that you did
penitence for as a Paladin can become hard-core (excuse the pun)
reality for you as an evil Fighter. Undead servants and warriors may
swell your armies, though it is usually the case that living troops
won’t have anything to do with undead ones. And, for Mages who
are getting along in years, one can always consider becoming a lich.
Len Lakofka’s article on vampires (TD #30) may also prove to be
very helpful for those who think they’d enjoy being undead themselves, but can’t be a lich. The list of things you can do when you’re
evil is long indeed, and should be well explored. If you’re undead,
maybe you could get a nightmare . . .

Now for the group goals. Anyone who’s played Monsters! Monsters! already knows what the goal is in an evil campaign. The goal is
to beat up on the good guys. The goody-good Paladins, sneaky
Rangers, and less-than-macho elves are going to get what they
deserve. What right have they got, breaking into our lairs, killing our

underlings and friends, and taking away the treasures we worked so
hard to steal? Besides, what we’re doing is the way of the universe.
Only the strong survive. Nice guys finish last. I’m number one. If you
help all the wimps get ahead in the universe, you undo natural
selections and evolution, which is trying to make us tougher. Might
makes right. And so on. Working up the goals and general background philosophy of an evil campaign is not difficult (and is actually
a little disturbing, as some people say such things in seriousness.
How little we know about our own alignments . . . )

Alignment may well become a particularly sensitive issue among
players. Lawful evil people can theoretically be trusted to some
extent to keep their word, though they may bend it a little. Chaotic
evils, however, may need to be watched. On his own, out spying or
assassinating someone, a chaotic evil character may be matchless in
ability. You might have reservations about letting him pull guard
duty alone a night after a big treasure haul has been made, though.
Sleeping creatures may be slain at the rate of one per melee round,
saith the Player’s Handbook. Forewarned is prepared. This is not to
say that chaotic evils should be banned from play; they just act more
independently.

Everyone needs to be aware that unless some kind of trust can be
formed among the players in AD&D or any other role-playing game,
the game quickly falls apart. Who wants to get involved if you keep
getting stabbed in the back all the time? Players with a history of
killing other player characters should know that they may become
prone to accidental falls from great altitudes, food poisoning, being
mistaken for a hunting animal by one’s own party, and so on. After
repeated incidents of this kind, one may not be invited to any more
meetings of the D&D club, either. Chaotic evil should be played with
care. If you plan on counting on your fellow adventurers in a crunch,
regardless of your alignment, you’ll have to treat them with respect.
For further thoughts on this, see Gary Gygax’s comments on “Evil:
Law vs. Chaos” in TD #28.

One other aspect of role-playing should be mentioned concerning an evil-oriented campaign. This is a personal prejudice of mine,
but it is shared by others I know who are involved in such games. It’s
a bad idea to let the game turn into a contest of who-can-make-theworst-atrocity. This is a self-centered and tasteless dead-end that
eventually becomes boring for everyone (and may actually drive
some people out of the group in disgust). Wanton cruelty should be
avoided by lawful evils as wasteful and unnecessary, and by chaotic
evils to prevent their being drawn and quartered by fed-up partners
or the local populace. This is not to say that you can’t tie the Ranger
down over an anthill for some laughs, but defenseless noncombatants should be left alone. Villagers can be aroused to fearful rage
by someone who beats up on pregnant hobbit females. Wise players
will avoid someone like that to prolong their own character lives.
DM’s are encouraged to make use of the “Angry Villager Rule” if the
need arises.

These are just a few of the ways you can put an evil-oriented
campaign together. It can be nice to not be good all the time, and at
least you’ll be on the other side of the poisoned dagger—giving and
not receiving