In reply to Piestar (msg # 2):

The free copy of the "Wicked Ones" rules state:
 Work together with your group to choose from one of these three themes:
➤ Keep It Simple: All PCs must be humanoid with two arms and two legs, nothing
bigger than a bugbear or smaller than a kobold. (Recommended for new players)
➤ We’re All Family: All PCs must be members of a specific monster race, perfect
for a highly themed dungeon.
➤ Anything Goes: PCs are free to play as anything, from oozes to mushroom
people to magically awakened evil squirrels. Almost anything goes, with the
GM having final say.
This message was last edited by the user at 00:19, Wed 28 Apr 2021.

In reply to GreenTongue (msg # 3):

So actual monsters, not just evil people behaving monstrously.

I think I would be interested, if the game could strive for any kind of pace, which means a small to medium sized party, in my experience. I've been in a few giant games, and they tend to bog down.

Are you thinking of running the game, or just gauging interest? Which level of complexity are you thinking of?

In reply to GreenTongue (msg # 1):

I think the real question is whether or not player-monsters are allowed to "gather" treasure from other player-monsters.

In my experience, RPoL games that involve practically any kind of PvP at all tend to get derailed really quickly, unless you're playing with a group of mature players that are invested in each other as a 'player group' and not likely to stomp their feet and take their toys and go home if one of them works against the others.

In reply to SunRuanEr (msg # 5):

Oh, I hadn't considered that. Yes, never been a fan of PVP.

An orc, a goblin and a kobold walk into a bar...

In reply to Piestar (msg # 4):

Not gaging interest as that would be a different forum.

Just wondering how likely it would be to run a successful game using those rules and "random strangers".

From the way I read the rules, the "gathered treasure" goes to the dungeon which is treated like an amplifier for the entire monster "team". As the dungeon gets upgraded, the players get
benefits / bonuses.

In reply to CaptainHellrazor (msg # 7):

That's actually one of the valid options for a chamber in the dungeon.

93.762591%

The rules suggest a "Tap Out Card" to have the topic switched when it is uncomfortable for a player. Is this something that actually works or has the damage been done by the time it is used?

In other words, would you keep playing if you had to do this? How many times before you just quit?

I've not played it and haven't read it fully but it might be more focused if the pcs worked for a evil bad guy, wizard, leech, necromancer etc.... Who has set up shop so to speak..... Then the missions could be set by him / her to extend his domain.

That gives the pcs a loose framework to use and allow more of collaboration to happen  but still enough wiggle room to allow individual evil acts to be carried out under the umbrella of the overall mission

I could see this working with the right group of invested, mature players.

Personally speaking, if I were to join in a game of this sort, I'd probably prefer hamming up the evil to achieve a certain degree of camp.

Gargamel from the Smurfs (if he were, say, a ogre magi) would be a good example.

Every game has about the same odds of going off the rails. You have to be able to communicate with your players and let them know your expectations.

In reply to jamat (msg # 12):

If you have ever heard of the computer game "Dungeon Master", it is the RPG version.
Not intended to take itself seriously. I get the feeling of camp more than cartoon.

Dungeon Keeper?

In reply to Sir Swindle (msg # 16):

Opps, Yes "Dungeon Keeper"

In reply to GreenTongue (msg # 15):


don't get me wrong  I wasn't suggesting it should be serious Camp evil has the right feel for the game, I was just suggesting a framework to hang it all on to give the PCs a reason for doing evil together....I through in a healthy dose of back stabbing and one upmanship into the mix to.....pcs trying to become the necromancor's right hand monster etc.....but then I come from a group who loved to play paranoia :O)

Wow, Dungeon Keeper, that was a long time ago. Then again I don't think I have had a chance to play Paranoia since the early 90's, sadly enough.

 Potentially, no. I've seen multiple evil-character, monster-sort games run and most didn't fail due to the players they just ran out of steam or the DM fell victim to RPol attrition.

 The ones I most recall were:

 We were all kobolds who had had our settlement hit by dwarves. We were protecting a tiny band of survivors, barely had any equipment and our main job was to establish a new nest and rebuild. That one had a lot of potential and obviously, we were all supposed to hang together. Sadly, we lost the DM.

 We were a band of evil and/or monstrous types sharing an enemy in the form of the lawful prison and the vicious prison guards who had trapped us and tormented us. That one ran for a good long time before we lost the DM, and I don't recall any serious player infighting, we just ran out of steam after our (epic) escape.

 We were a band of evil/monstrous magic types coming together to start a guild in order to accumulate power. Everyone got on, with some potentially fun rivalry then one guy casually started murdering bystanders in the neutral town we were going to use as a base and the game stalled out.

 We were a band of evil sorts of various kinds fully committed to overthrowing the new world order of shiny light and we had to work together because everyone else would kill us. This one also ran a good while, before we lost our DM (who was like, pathologically well organised). There was some friction and some party backstabbing, but not much because we all had much bigger fish to fry.

 Oh! And there was one where we were all epic servants of some long-dead evil returned to the world and were scheming to bring them back. Because we were minions, we weren't allowed to turn on one another, but violent snark and a little light backstabbing were considered par for the course, as long as you didn't get in the way of The Plan. Weirdly, we all worked together like a well-oiled machine before attrition took the game down.

In reply to Korentin_Black (msg # 20):

Were a number of the same players in these?

I would expect "one guy casually started murdering bystanders in the neutral town" is a death knell for games other than just monster ones. Someone gets "bored" and ruins it for everyone.

Not really, your GM can boot the player and delete the offending posts and the reactions pretty easily. Or just boot the player and roll with the other PC's murdering his character as an object lesson. We aren't friends here. It's not like I'm asking you to put down your beer and get out of my basement on a Friday night.

I didn't really know much about this game until this thread.  Grabbed the free edition from DriveThru and looking it over quickly...I don't see how it's much different from Apocalypse World or Blades in the Dark.  Definitely agree players and GM should have a discussion about the type of game they want to play and the degrees of badness they're comfortable with, and then I'd expect folks to stick to it.  But that's what these style of games are all about, collaboration between everyone to create the situations and tell the story.

In reply to DBCowboy (msg # 23):

Yeah, it uses the "Blades in the Dark" engine.

When the focus is doing "bad things" you can kind of expect unpleasant posts but, when the players are specifically "monsters", I'm wondering if players feel they have a license to push the boundaries?

Powered by the Apocalypse is what that core system is called. But I sort of doubt it will go any crazier than any other PbtA game. Apocalypse World is pretty morally grey and it does fine.

Now that "Undead Awakening" has been released, it might be time to revisit this question.

Does it matter what type of "Evil" creature the players pick?

Are there some to avoid to keep a game from crashing and burning?

I know that I'm late in posting this...

"Monster" and "Evil" aren't necessarily the same thing, in-spite of the various stereotypes (mostly from D&D).  There's plenty of monster/monster-type characters that aren't out to burn down the village and kill all the humans.

One of the first rules of a group game (IMO) is that everyone has to work together.   I've learned over the years that "lone wolf" and "Narcissistic" (NPD) type characters really don't function well in that environment.   When allowed, said characters are typically the reason for game/campaign disintegration.