Legion of Doom - Evil Think Tank

[Tekill]

From an IC standpoint, evils hate evils just as much. Allegiances are barely tenable, often through a common interest, but quickly dissolving once that commonality succeeds or fails...often failing, right?! 

I picture the evil group having a certain neutrality. Factions can back stab each other as much as they want but it would be to thier detriment.
It would be like a brokerage of evil.
Need to hire some thugs for a dm event...go to the Lod.
Need to fence some loot...post with Lod.
Need an assassin?
Want bodyguards?
Looking for a job or caper?
Want a party that doesn't mind you summoning a vampire while you grind giants?

You get the idea.

One cruel/trick though would be to hire a faction to get them to meet just to ambush them....muahahahhaha.

[Steve]

It's funny, but your LoD idea is kinda how Lawful (good) "go to" both the Flaming Fist and/or the Dukes.

But evil-like.

Not a bad idea. Dialectic started but dropped the High Captains of Roaringshore as kinda this, though I'd imagine they are less evil than Zhents or CotD...more opportunists or anarchists.

[Sun Wukong]

You basically need a faction that is always hiring. A faction that doesn't try to beat others up first and foremost, because it doesn't really add up to great role-play experience.

So lets talk about some PvP encounters with one 'evil faction.'

Encounter One: A character in the same party warned about appearance of two characters, how they bring mean bussiness and all that, and since it was near midnight my character decided to pick some trouble with them. The other guy in my party set them running before I could do anything else.

Encounter Two: I encounter a party of two inside the spider tunnel. They tell me to flee inside that spider tunnel. My character cannot flee because behind him is a huge pool of water, and ahead are two faction members blocking the passage. I knew that rolling my intimidate skill was probably pointless, people do not not know or want to reveal accurate information for the counter roll. Plus, running at them in my books would be a sign of aggression. I would attack in their position. Thus, I had my character shout something back, and toggled them hostile, attacked, and went to get a cup of tea. Now, I could have just run past them after the lost PvP bout... But running past two guys that block the passage and steal their spider experience didn't really sound that nice of me, so I decided to wait and let them move onwards. They moved on so slowly, and I was literally over encumbered, and they still had trouble moving on... So I found that whole experience rather annoying.

Encounter three: I get accosted by another member of that same faction, he makes claims that my character has made lies that I have no idea whatsover, he doesn't explain himself. Thus I actually tried using my bluff score, I rolled very high. The other guy rolls wisdom due to not having skill points in Sense Motive, and he rolls very low. Even if he can make the argument that he should get the +20 modifier to his sense motive roll, I would have still won the skill roll. Hence, the other guy goes right back to insisting on PvP, and with one silent player or two summons of some kind, my thoughts go to using the mobs of the location to my advantage. (I got enough raise dead scrolls to raise them all three times if need be.) But then I run into a horde of DM spawned undead, and decided to log out and log back in at some later point.


So yeah, I am not really looking forward to have anything to do with this one player faction, and that character of mine is a villain.

[Tekill]

I thought of allowing only 1 or 2 players from each faction join the LoD sort of as emissaries from that faction. They would represent their faction in dealings with the LoD in regards to bigger plots and such or with day to day admin stuff and whatever other dealings. That person would represent both groups. I figure this way - one group does not tip the scales influence or leverage wise. The rest of the LoD can vote said representative out so that the faction would have to pick a new member as emissary.
It would link the factions and there would be some choice among the members who got to be part of the organizing. Not all emissaries/factions need to partake in all plots/capers/events. Your faction or you as an individual would be involved in as much as it would interest you. No more no less.
The trick is how do you prevent it from factions teaming up to taking control of the LoD. I suppose for it to work correctly there would have to be a leader. A king/queen of the underworld. I dont think democracy would work here too much. The king/queen would have say veto rights and tie breaker ability and some such stuff. The trick would be making sure the king/queen was straight with everyone....perhaps the king/queen can be voted out too?
Something like that.

[CleverUsername123]

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[Cult of the Dragon]

I'm going to be a bit candid here so please don't take this personally or the wrong way. Most evil guilds lack creativity. Their main premise tends to be something like this:

Let's be a mischievous group that collects information and wealth. Also people can hire us to do evil deeds if they want to.

or

Let's just get a group of evil people together and see what happens.

Evil needs an objective. It needs tangible goals, plots, schemes, missions, and end game success. Good doesn't have this problem - they have it naturally:

Let's stop evil.

To be truly successful as an evil faction you need a vision for where you want to end up and progressive steps of how to get there. As I'm clearly biased I won't use my own guild as an example - I'll give you another:

Evil Deity related factions. These have astute objectives provided by their Deity and PCs who worship that deity are determined to carry them out. Just look at the most successful evil factions as of late:

- The Temple of Auril
- Zhentarim (Bane)
- The Church of Shar more recently.

Do you notice something in common? There is a greater purpose at work for all the scheming and plotting.

If you need an example of something non deity related look no further than The Cult of the Dragon (although one could make the argument that Dracoliches are the deity).

The goal of COTD is to bring about the apocalypse and have undead dragons rule the world. That's an end game and a vision everyone who joins knows and is working towards. It's not just "let's just sit around and be evil and see what happens."

TLDR: Evil needs a tangible objective.

[Valefort]

Once again replace good by evil and vice versa and it will still hold completely true ....

Evil can play to stop good as much as the reverse, it's not like good guys are not doing anything you know. Good needs tangible goals, plots, schemes, plans to tilt the setting towards good, it's a constant effort.

[Cult of the Dragon]

Once again replace good by evil and vice versa and it will still hold completely true ....

Evil can play to stop good as much as the reverse, it's not like good guys are not doing anything you know. Good needs tangible goals, plots, schemes, plans to tilt the setting towards good, it's a constant effort.

Typically from an evil point of view, "good" just gets in the way of an objective. Evil leaving their front door to "stop good" isn't as extreme as good leaving their front door to "stop evil." While they have similarities it's definitely tilted in the favor of good.

It's easier for real life people (us behind the screen) to group together in the name of fighting evil than it is in the name of fighting good. Which is why I have such an adamant point of view on evil needing a true objective.

[aaron22]

CotD.. i think tek is not contradicting this aspect. what he proposes is an understanding between factions of different goals to seeing commonalities that accomplish the goals that each desire.

your cult might run into a problem that those within your faction cannot solve, but with the assistance of another evil faction the problem could be solved. Say you discover a phylactery of a dracolich, but it seems to be missing something, but you cannot figure out what. you can take it to the black church of myrkul so they can help you. from there you both gain.

instead of thinking that evil must fight evil as well as fight good is a mess. this is not what you would/should do. evil is no different than good. they just believe and follow things that are unsavory to the goods. the good guys work together. its what good guys do. right? to think evil cannot work together is ridiculous and makes you the "saturday morning villain". following a concept that is created there (SMV) and holds no water. you want to drop that title. stop being it and actually do what is done in RL and fantasy canon. i hate being casted a SMV. it is derogatory to RP that they have no idea about and efforts that i have made to not be that. but if an evil player thinks that the SMV is the outline of every evil character they play, then you need to look at yourself and what your RP is.

sorry. got a bit soap-boxy there.

[Cult of the Dragon]

I think you misunderstand me. Absolutely, it's important for evil guilds to have relationships with each other and work with together sometimes. In lore, evil factions both work together and war against each other for influence or "turf" and other reasons.

Where I was coming from was more guild-specific. When someone creates a guild concept that potential members would struggle with and would have difficulties remaining active.

[aaron22]

yea.. sorry CotD. the first two paragraphs are for you. the last rant is to those in the GP that seem to think that evil cannot work together because they think inside a box that is too small for a realistic concept. its like saying all good guys have to be paladins. it is not solid at all.

[CleverUsername123]

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[Steve]

Chaotic Evil is not the play nice crew.

I'm all for Lawful Evil working together, both from IC and OOC reasons.

But let's be realistic on the "how Evil can work together."

[aaron22]

Chaotic evil is a broader concept than being a bastion of chaos. Orcs and elves are chaotic but have complex social structures with hierarchies and discipline at every corner. Is that a falsehood that every writer in the history of dnd has gotten incorrect. No.

First you should define what is evil. While defined using synonyms like immoral and malovant, evil is tricky and hard to define. In most cases people who do evil do not think they are doing evil. Most of the time they in fact think they are the most good. Look at Rwanda, khmar rouge, Auschwitz. Evil is no different than good. Two sides to the same coin. It is good to kill 100 kobalds. It is bad to kill 100 rock gnomes. The kobalds might disagree just as much as the gnomes do.

There are tons of examples of organizations that are considered by many to be evil. But there as also mass murderers who defy organization but follow in a small scale total meticulous control over self. thinking they are doing good. Look at Lee Harvey Oswald. His actions to kill the leader of world power is chaotic, but his life and manner he went about the assassination promotes lawfullness.

To think chaotic evil cannot work in a unified manner is completely false and has no basis whatsoever in any reality or fantasy at all. Period. chaotic is the bigger picture look at things. Not the limited vision of the individual.

[Steve]

When you start comparing D&D and the Forgotten Realns to real life, you run into the yuuuge problem of trying to rationalize and justify fantasy. It's Fantasy Evil mate!!