Anti-Heroquest....or Evilquest if you will..........

[bruenor]

Something popped into my brain at work the other day after reading the Anti-Heroquest thread.

Has anyone devised a way or actually played with an evil band of 'heroes', in a lawful dungeon?

Basically swapping the roles of the miniatures in the game, so instead of an Elf you have a Drow or Dark Elf, and so on?

Curious to see if it worked and how they dealt with the player characters evilness?

[chaoticprime]

The regular heroes are chiefly motivated by money to buy weapons, anyway. Plus, good or evil, Chaos wants everyone dead. Law is no the opposite of Chaos, Cosmic is. Chaos is emptiness which opposes order, and a Cosmos is an orderly arrangement. Law is the measure used to rule, and does not have to advocate law or chaos, but can only exist in a Cosmic state. The Powers of Chaos seek to end the ordered universe, and only developed a nature in the first place to be an antithesis. They cannot ever fail, either, for as long as sentient beings exist, Chaos will make actual personifications of the worst evils within them. The only reason there are bad guys, is that there are also good guys. The conflict is effectively man trying to fight against himself. Every new weapon, every new spell, all of that, is just one more tool for Chaos. Men that fight for Chaos, called "Slaves of Darkness",do so because they have ceased to have their own Will. Orcs and goblins lack the intelligence and compassion to live peacefully even among their own kind. The purpose of the setting is pretty much to die fighting halting the charge of what basically amounts to entropy. Basically, evil has every reason good does to fight Chaos.

I think what you are looking for is probably best done by a party of Skaven adventurers, or Lizardmen that believe that killing all humans will stint the surge of Chaos. The Skaven actually exist in contempt of humanity, and everything about them is a mockery of humankind.

[knightkrawler]

RogueQuest

Miniature-wise and rule-wise, I certainly could pull this off.
I have a lot of humans, elves, dwarves...
Lizardmen and even Mercenary Monster Troops are easily converted into forces of good.

Four heroes I can think of right now:
Chaos Warrior to replace the Barbarian,
Necromancer instead of Wizard,
Chaos Dwarf Technicus for a Dwarf,
Orc Manhunter for the Elf

This would make for a party of mercenaries sent by Morcar to sabotage, assassinate, and steal...
The advantages are easily converted, stats more or less unchanged.
It's worth to follow up on that idea.

[bruenor]

I'm thinking more along the lines of a mixed party for whatever reasons, they've banded together to achieve some Chaos related stuff.
Maybe a Chaos Warrior/Maurader (Barbarian), Dark Elf (Elf), Chaos Sorcerer or Witch, (Wizard), and a Chaos Dwarf (Dwarf).
Of course you can also substitute any of the above with expanded universe characters, like a Skaven Thief/Rogue or complete undead party with a Vampire/Necromancer as the Wizard, easily a Lizardman Temple Guard or Saurus could replace the Barbarian etc

The dungeons could be sewer systems under cities where they sow their evil to bring down the city?
Pretty limitless if you ask me, and it would give the players chance to explore their darker sides.

[knightkrawler]

Well...
For my players, these Heroes are available, among others, of course:
* Chaos Warrior (Human or Beastman)
* Assassin (Dark Elf or Skaven)
* Clan Warrior (Chaos Dwarf or Orc)
* Necromancer (Human or Gnoll)

For example. Races to be combined with these Classes are not a matter of rules, but of miniature availability, really...
Some of the special rules for these Hero Classes make for some interesting combos of heroes.

Pretty limitless if you ask me, and it would give the players chance to explore their darker sides.

That's exactly what I aim for... When all is finished a playtest of all 14 original quests will be in order.

[chaoticprime]

I like an Orc Boyz better for replacing the Barbarian (seeing as they're Orcish barbarians), A Slann Mage for the Wizard (all magic, no melee in them), a Skaven Assassin for the Dwarf (fighting + traps), and a Vampire Lord for the Elf (melee + magic).

[Sjeng]

Great idea! and it's another good use for the Bones minis. The Vampire set has some cool anti-hero models. Some badass evil warriors, some demonspawn mages (male + female), some dark elves (male + female) and plenty of monsters (a dragon warrior, some snakemen, etc.)
It even includes the "We Be Goblins" set, which belongs to a campaign where you play a band of goblins. I don't have the campaign sadly, but perhaps it's available for download somewhere. Pathfinder I believe.

[knightkrawler]

Those goblins you're talking about are courtesy of Pathfinder, indeed.
Along with some more of the Bones package.

[torilen]

chaoticprime - I'm not sure if I agree or disagree with most of what you've said...it is a little too
"lofty philosophical" for me. I do agree that evil would, most times, want to stamp out chaos.
Realize in most roleplaying games, Law is the Opposite and Chaos, mainly drawing on the original
rpg D&D, which set down that idea. (actually, the original D&D was only law and chaos...they didn't
introduce good and evil until later, if I remember correctly.)

I think one of the ideas behind using Law vs Chaos is, it is much easier to understand than outright
philosophy, which is the direction you go with, apparently. Nothing wrong with that...it just isn't all
that accessible for all players (myself included...never do well in deep philosophical discussions on chaos
vs law vs good vs evil).


Now, to the point at hand, I personally think a bad-guy game would be neat every so often, especially if it
is possible to keep it in with the story line. Maybe the heroes irritate the bad guys enough that they make
an attack at them, and in comes the bad guy game. The game master runs the actual heroes, and some extra
soldiers, archers, and such, and the players play the bad guy game master characters as their own characters
for a game or two.

I think it would be a great idea to allow the players to run the monsters sometimes...this is a fairly well-known
game titled "reverse dungeon". The game master makes his four characters, and the players together run the
quests for a bit. I honestly think the heroes would have a hard time beating this kind of game, as four players
running all the different monsters would lead to a whole lot tougher monsters to fight.

[bruenor]

Good call Torilen, just the kind of thing I was thinking of, even making a full quest pack of it.

I know I said Lawful dungeon, but was just generalising the good guys, not actual Lawful.
In comics badguys of all types band together to beat the good guys, so why not in this game?