Howdy folks.
A friend of mine has been itching to play some DnD and I drew the short straw to run it. I don’t think we have time for more than a one shot so I come for ideas.
Normally I’m good with coming up with stuff but she wants to do something where they get to play as evil instead of your typical heroes. My problem is everything I come up with just feels like typical hero quest but called evil. Like “kidnap the princess” just feels like a re-skin of “rescue the princess”. Hoping y’all have something more to get me thinking.
I am aware of the Critical Role Mordor one shot that I’ll take some inspiration from.
Thanks in advance y’all
a town is planning a yuletide or similar celebration where they all pooled their resources to get an expensive icon. have them stake out the delivery and go into the town to steal the item, murdering anyone who resists
And they have to succeed a willpower save to keep the townspeople’s singing from growing their hearts 3 sizes and making them bring back the gifts.
You could have the PCs be in service to an evil wizard or overlord, and just take any regular plot and give them the baddies’ role.
You could have multiple factions in a city, like noble houses, and give them some sort of goal to accomplish in that context. Think Game of Thrones or the drow in Menzoberranzan.
You could have them doing something “good” but with a “the ends justify the means” mentality.
I like the “give them the baddies’ role” idea. I’ll think on that one, thanks
pathfinder’s begginers box. sorry. just being a fanboy ass.
A heist job.
The PCs are forced to kill, whether or not they want to.
At a pivotal moment, an NPC from one PC’s past shows up - or maybe just somebody who convincingly pretends to be one. They reveal information that makes it sound like the PC has been conspiring against the rest to split the hall with the NPC.
Thing is, the NPC is lying. But is very convincing.
In effect, you orchestrate a situation in which evil characters begin to infight. And because they’re evil, it creates lots of opportunity for highjinks.
Ask your player what they mean by evil in this context. Do they mean evil as in oil barons extracting all the wealth they can by any means necessary, or does she want to skin babies to make purses?
I did ask and she just said she wants to cause trouble and be the bad guy. I know she’s big into serial killers so more the skin babies side I’d guess.
Thing is, your typical clear-out-the-humanoid-tribe dungeon crawl could be considered pretty evil in its own right by modern standards. Just putting an emphasis on how much that old trope would actually involve disrupting lives and destroying families could be enough, depending on what she’s going for.
I love doing this to my players. They go to loot a goblin body in a cave and find a baby rattle or something. They always get so upset.
I could see taking that to it’s max as a fun thing. An evil king wants a town cleared out so he can build a highway through it. It’s the players job to clear the town
