>To this day I never....
>Except when I did.

Lol

But in my experience all my evil campaigns boil down to nobody being really sure how to play evil and being chaotic neutral instead.

>To date, I have never been able to run a That Guy campaign without it degenerating into everyone acting like That Guy.

Why would you expect any different?

>>48330849
Playing an Evil campaign = mindset of "We Have To Try To Be Evil!" = That Guy derpfest because they only understand Evil alignment in terms of silly cliches.

Honestly it's better to frame it in terms of background details.

>you're all the retainers of a robber baron - rough, ragged men-at-arms, neer do wells and brigands
>you're members of a blood cult looking to overthrow the priest-kings who have persecuted you for centuries
>you're enforcers for a slum kingpin

And then use a system without any alignment rules.

dont do that

>>48330849
I believe, in theory that an evil campaign can work as long as you have a full set of highly competent roleplayers even with a weaker DM.

But I can't imagine it ever working in practice.

>>48330849
Get some better players. If yours aren't mature enough to handle an evil campaign, they're probably not worth playing with anyway.

Well make there ultra evil necromancer overlord or god smack them for being stupid..."I want prayers and offering sacrifices and obedience, not people running to the hills to die eating mushrooms and twigs becuase they see my heralds comming over the rise"

The evil king need taxes and tribute, he need crops for his troops . If you string up to many children and rape anything that moves you start a rebellion, you make them choose between living hell and possible death and the alternate, an uprising with possible death.

>>48330849
>Does it start with finding the right players first?
Yes.
Evil is not a murderfest only with the right group and the right pitch and the right rules.

Organized crime is a good example of the base that limits the players from dumbassing around.

>>48330849
>Everything turns into a "murder and rape everybody just because you can" game.

But anon, that's what evil people do.

>go to prison
>nothing but rape and murder in between hammering out license plates

I've been running a fairly succesful evil campaign in 4e, where the player characters are the Dark Lords awoken after a thousand years after them being sealed away. Campaign's about them trying to take over the world (again).

I think the main reason it's not descended into anarchy is since the party has had a very definate goal in mind since the start of the game - not much reason to randomly murder and rape when you've got a continent to conquer. Plus they're all good players, that helps too.

>>48330849
I've had evil campaigns descend into that, yes. But I've had some work. I think it depends entirely on the players, honestly. Their conception of what "evil" is, and their willingness to make the campaign work.

I don't want to just say it's a matter of maturity, as if I was implying that being able to identify with evil characters is a prerequisite for maturity. But in my experience my older players who had been around the block a few times were the ones who were able to give a villain definite goals, pursue them in a way that made them evil, but still make the character relatable enough to be compelling. It was the younger and/or stupider ones who fell prey to the "evil is raping or murdering people constantly, and compulsively screwing over anyone you can because you can regardless of the consequences to you" mindset.

>>48330849
The trick to running an Evil campaign is that Evil is not an end, it's a set of means. If you establish the campaign's theme to just be "Evil game", then the only thing that comes to mind is just being Evil, which leads to puppy-kicking one dimensional edgelords.

Instead, try establishing a goal or plot to the game that isn't explicitly Evil in itself, but lends itself well to supporting Evil motivations and actions. Don't ask the players to bring you Evil PCs for an Evil game; ask them to bring grey characters for a grey game, and let them progress from there. It's usually better to start off with some flavor of Neutral-leaning-Evil for the party and their immediate plot hooks, because it discourages skipping to the logical extreme of the alignment spectrum. If you start off Evil, people assume you're starting off all the way over in the "demon summoning rape-cult" corner.

Personally I suggest starting at a low level with a concrete but flexible goal, like "take over the city", have the PCs start in circumstances that don't lend themselves as well to legitimate or "Good" means of reaching that goal. Start them as thugs, commoners, con men, or gang toughs, for example; NOT brave adventurers or upstanding members of the city guard (although the latter could work if you present the Guard as sufficiently corrupt. It might also inspire them to try and clean house, though, so it depends on the player). Put them in situations where things like theft and corruption profit them; balance party wealth on the assumption that they will take advantage of those methods. If they stay on the straight and narrow, they gain little and start falling behind the curve.
It can be difficult to pull this off without appearing to blatant; don't simply have the good option screw them, or take things away and present an evil way to get them back.
Rather, make the good choice be exactly as advertised, but simply not enough, while the evil methods promise better money on the side.

>>48337960

This is exactly what I was going to write, but looks like this kind anon has beaten me to it.

>>48337960
Cont.

The goal is not to make them feel like you're punishing them for taking the Good route, but instead make then conscious of the fact that aren't being rewarded. Have Good questgivers offer smaller rewards and justifications, like "this is all I can spare, I'm sorry" or "we have so little; I beg you, please, help us". Have them substitute gratitude for payment, but don't throw the player a bone if they start to fall behind because of their altruism.
Don't make their gratitude unduly useful. The begger whose daughter you saved from the plague should not turn out to have a lead on how the party can reach some goal, nor should the beleaguered, kindhearted city watch captain they did a job for be a capable helper in some later event. Present everything at face value and leave it there. The begger was just a begger, and the captain has no time or effort to spare from his duties, just as he said when he asked for their help in the first place. If you think it's appropriate, you can try provoking feelings of indignation or unappreciation towards the "Good" parties.
Perhaps a shopkeeper whose store was robbed asks the party to help him catch the thief and recover the merchandise. The shop is plain and not terribly wealthy looking, and the wares that remain are average to poor quality. Every indication is that the shopkeep is lower-middle class at most, and he offers a reward consistent with that appearance, even just a touch generous.
When they catch up with the thief, it turns out the goods are worth a fair bit more than the party assumed; maybe the thief even blabbed the name of his fence. The party could take some, or even all, the goods easily, the thief taking all the blame. Or perhaps they could be honest and return everything, even though the reward is less than half what the goods were really worth.
If they do, have them see the shopkeep enjoying a meal at a fine Inn, far above his apparent means, with the profits the party could have taken.

>>48330849
Make it mandatory for every player to list AT LEAST one in character reason why
1) They will work together with the group, even if they don't like certain members
2) They won't draw obvious attention from the authorities
3) They won't betray the group at the first opportunity

If an evil character can have reasons for all three, they can usually gel enough to not degenerate into lolsoevul

For the most part, my party's evil campaign played out just like an ordinary campaign, except for passerby they aided or town they saved, they extorted them into ruin afterwards.
Well, at least until the very end when we started killing en masse for blood sacrifice to dark gods, but that was because mere gold wasn't particularly necessary or useful at that point.

>>48330849
My players do that when I run evil campaigns.

They usually aren't bad players, and eventually I realized that evil campaigns amongst my friends seem to be short hand for: "GM we want a break from normal shit and want you to entertain us in more and more creative ways as we act out as retards." Once I realized that it was more a vessel for absurdist humor, I found it pretty fun. It actually took a GM load off as It was more about designing fun set encounters for them to be horrific assholes, than evil campaign with over arching plot.

Basically just talk to your players before getting into this shit, and make sure everyone is on the same page. Some are going to just want to go full retard chaotic evil murderhobos, while others may want to play a game of operators doing black projects using whatever dubious means necessary. If everybody including you are on the same page then you can run it.

>>48334146
>Not mature enough to have the cartoon villain alignment.