Good or evil? How do you play?

[Wes]

Think of evil as being highly selfish/disinterested in the welfare of others.

Kind of like an Antisocial personality disorder.

Isn't that a New York Dolls song?

That would be 'Personality Crisis'. Great band, the New York Dolls.  O0

I know man...couldn't resist :)

[Dammit Carl!]

I've played all class types (except for straight-up Wizard types 'cause they are so damn dull to me) and all alignments and I've come to the conclusion that at the end of the day, its the type of game the GM envisions that helps steer me to what is going to be okay to play overall.  I'm in it to have a good time and make a good story when it is all said and done.

A purely evil character better have damn good reason to be in with a bunch of goody-two-shoes types and vice versa as there always, always, always is a clash within the group at some point when "that guy," pipes up and says, "well, my character wouldn't do _____ because their alignment is _____ and I don't care if the rest of the group wants to do _____," which then generally breaks the flow of things for a little bit due to arguments, de-rails and so on.

[Bison]

^ Yeah.  I agree especially with the breaking of the flow of the game.  It really depends on the group and whether they are rules sticklers or not.  The overly zealous rules stickler can break the flow of the game over a thousand different disagreements on the interpretation of the rules. 

[MetalDog]

So how do I keep it on track without giving in to wildly inconsistent requests?  Do I just not care too much about what alignment they say they are? 

[LongBlade]

So how do I keep it on track without giving in to wildly inconsistent requests?  Do I just not care too much about what alignment they say they are?

Well, you are the boss.

Without being bossy, you need to communicate that you're there to keep the game on track.

It does depend on the crew, but at times I've stepped out of the DM role to simply give some metagaming advice: "I haven't read that far, so how about you guys go right instead of left?" :)

Seriously, several of the pre-made adventures in 5.0 are really open ended. You simply cannot prepare for *every* possible move they're going to make.

Every time I've done it they've been entirely understanding and happy to move along.

Sometimes just a strong gaze as the DM will also lead them in a different direction. Sometimes proper voice inflection does it: "Do you really jump into the pit of spikes?" (And dramatically pick up a d20)

[bayonetbrant]

reward add'l XP for playing alignment well

[Bison]

So how do I keep it on track without giving in to wildly inconsistent requests?

The reality is that you just need to give yourself time to grow into the role of being the DM.  It's something you will just develop a feeling about and "know" how to address.   And there are ways you can help yourself out, but without knowing the details of what you have in mind for the progression or overarching story of your campaign its hard to say.  I think the best way is to just start out will small encounters/adventures that let you get a feel for how the group interacts and it also gives them time to develop their characters and party skills.  Don't rush into the main story.  There's no need too.  Work on the backstory and do manageable encounters.  Small dungeons, caves, bandit/monster camps are easy encounter areas that you can develop and as long as they leave town, the opportunity to use the encounter will occur.  So build a couple of small encounters.  It'll help you manage things too.  You know the story escorting a merchant get ambushed follow the trail back to a small cave explore cave kill baddies collect a few coppers and return the merchant back to town type deal.  It may seem not very epic but there is a lot to learn from a small, simply designed encounter/story arch.

Do I just not care too much about what alignment they say they are?

I wouldn't.  Let them role play most people IMHO never really give it too much thought unless they are heavy into the RP.  You may have a more combat/action oriented group or a group that learns to love the interaction of RPing.  Let it go unless its seriously disruptive.


I'm sure other have more and better advice, but that's my two cents.  Start small and manageable and work your way up to more complex.

[Bison]

reward add'l XP for playing alignment well

This is good advice too.  Just be wary of the those who confuse "chaotic" and "evil" with unbridled anarchy and mayhem.

[MetalDog]

I really appreciate you gents taking the time to reply and suggest.  Watched some videos on YouTube about DMing and encounters.  I think I have a better grip on what I want to do now adventure wise.

[Nefaro]

I never liked the concept of character alignment, so didn't worry about it much other than as a very vague guide to possible NPC motivations & methods.


I think the first tip that experienced DMs give others is be flexible and don't try to ram your adventure path down the party's throat.  Play it fast & loose.  Let the players generally decide how the story progresses through your narrative (with a little nudging at times), but try not to constantly force them down a rigid path of your own making. 

Prepare your story hook (maybe some sub-plots) and some NPCs, McGuffin(s), Enemies/Encounters, etc in a modular way.  Because the players will always travel off your perfectly prepared path at some point, so try to keep it as flexible as possible and prepare to shuffle such modular prepared stuff on the fly.  You can still get them to the content you've been working on, but maybe with some quick changes in the order/NPCs/intent.  They will still feel like the experience is very open-ended (and, therefore, damn fun!).   O0

[Bison]

Yup.  Build a few small modular encounters and just be flexible good advice Nef.  The best part is that those encounters don't go to waste.  If you make 2 or 3 and only use 1, then you already have some built for a future need.  And you can just build more intricacy into those basic encounters into the future to further the campaign narrative, fill in a down time or unplanned for party action.  Also not every encounter has to be a combat/action sort of encounter.  Some can just be an NPC or location concept. That's the beauty of it. 

[MetalDog]

The encounter video I watched mentioned those along with puzzle and natural disaster.  And all these people I am shepherding seem gung ho about doing this.  Including playing parts and taking ownership of the story.

[Bison]

I always loved to see how they mapped out a dungeon afterward and compare it to what I had behind the screen.  They can be wildly different.  Either I sucked as a DM describing the size of rooms, lengths and turns of passages, or they sucked at listening.  :)  But it was almost always fun.

I like the occasional natural disaster type backdrop.  And puzzles can be fun too, if they are well thought out and can be figured out by the players. 

[LongBlade]

The encounter video I watched mentioned those along with puzzle and natural disaster.  And all these people I am shepherding seem gung ho about doing this.  Including playing parts and taking ownership of the story.

D&D 5 does a nice job of "forcing" players to work on a back story. This gives a lot of life to them and the opportunity for more role-play. Again, you can reward this with XP.

Also, I've found that players seem to respond to a liberal use of "inspiration" rewards. Just make sure it seems like they're earning them.

[bayonetbrant]

one of the best background generators out there was in this one

http://rpggeek.com/rpg/3693/where-fools-dare-tread

but it's a more lovecraftian/horror theme