My soon to be Evil Drow Campaign, ideas welcome

[Dagger75]

Well I have decided to run an evil drow game. The players can play drow and cause I bought savage species, ogres, orcs bugbears and such. Well anyway I have a couple ideas to get the players well angry at drow society and the oppression it is to be a male drow.

First I have 4 guys and gal. Well she is going to play a Drow Cleric of Lolth and she will be showered with favoritism from society.

The guys who play drow- Well I am making a list of random occupations. After they make there characters completely I will tell them to erase 4 skill points and roll a percentile dice. I will consult the chart, they might have to take profession farmer, jewelry craft, blacksmithing, stone masonry, construction ect, basically labor jobs. As I see it, a male drow was born, well we need a rothe herder so this guy will do that, when he is done we can train him to be a fighter, thief, mage whatever but he owes the house something just for being born a male. The one lady player, she is free to do what she wants with her skill points.

Also stuff will probably be cheaper for the female player and she will have access to things the males will not be allowed to.

My thinking, if they want to play and evil campaing, I aint going to make it nice for them. Also inner party conflict might be fun for a while if it doesn't get out of hand.

Any other fun ideas or comments out there?

 

[Thresher]

Sean Reynolds wrote some things on his website that might be worth your while to look through and get ideas from.
- http://www.seankreynolds.com/

Apart from that, well its not like theres a lack of source materiel out there you can draw on, good luck holding it all together though

 

[baseballfury]

You should definitely invest in Green Ronin's Plot & Poison: A Guidebook to Drow. Your players will have a blast with all the new prestige class and feats, and you'll love the expanded drow pantheon.

 

[LuYangShih]

In my opinion, you shouldn't mess with the skill points given to the characters. Dictating what a characters skillpoints will be, however minimally, is likely to anger players, and for good reason.

Even if it does make sense, (and that could be argued) it's really annoying when the DM begins to take away the control of the one thing in the world that is yours and yours alone, your character. You could argue that anyone growing up in a rural village should have ranks in Profession: Farmer, or Profession: Sheep Herder, or so on, but that's the players choice to make, not yours.

Having the female drow be favored is fine, since that's the society they live in, but if you start to take away character control, I guarantee they will resent it. PCs are supposed to be special, unique heroes (or in this case, villians) who are above and beyond the average cut of the world. They're not rothe herders, unless the player controlling them wants them to be.

 

[Endur]

Required Skills

As a GM, you can certainly set required skills for a PC, just like you can set required skills for a PRC.

For instance, if the characters want to be a male Drow, you could tell them that they need at least one rank in:
Knowledge Religion
Knowledge Nobility and Royalty
Profession (X)

For Female Drow, you might have a seperate list.

And for Orc slaves, you might let their skill list be completely open (barbarians? what skills?).

Evil Dwarves might be required to have 4 ranks in a craft, etc.

I do agree, however, that you should tell the PCs this before they decide what race they want to play. You want to avoid taking things away from PCs. Instead, the GM should be the giver.

i.e. You can play a standard race of the PHB or you can play a "Special" race. If you play a special race, there are special rules.

Also, you might give the female cleric NPC servants, retainers, slaves, property, wealth, noble blood, etc.

 

[Angcuru]

Well I have decided to run an evil drow game.

As opposed to good drow?

 

[Dagger75]

In my opinion, you shouldn't mess with the skill points given to the characters. Dictating what a characters skillpoints will be, however minimally, is likely to anger players, and for good reason.

Even if it does make sense, (and that could be argued) it's really annoying when the DM begins to take away the control of the one thing in the world that is yours and yours alone, your character. You could argue that anyone growing up in a rural village should have ranks in Profession: Farmer, or Profession: Sheep Herder, or so on, but that's the players choice to make, not yours.

I see your point and I would agree with it for any other game I would run except a drow society is not a happy go lucky place. I'm sure you weren't looking for debate but I just wanted to clarify for the hell of it
It is an oppressive place were your life is only worth what someone more powerful than you dictates. I am also doing it cause the only time people seem to want to play evil games are so they can do anything they want with no consequences. This is going to be no free ride for doing that, if you want to play a drow assassin fine, but you may have started out as a farmer to pay for that.

Plus not all the skills are going to be "useless". There will be poison making, blacksmithing, alchemy, weaponsmithing, armorsmithing and such.

As for the other lesser races, Orcs, bugbears, hobgoblins, these are beneath the drow. As long as they know there place, listen and obey then the drow will probably not even notice them. They will have no restrictions on skills or even classes.

Oh and I picked up Plot and Poison, so far I like it, I will read more more at work tonight.

 

[BLACKDIRGE]

I found dragon magazine #298 to be indispensable in running my drow campaign. It features a complete write up of the drow city Erelhei-Cinlu and is simply excellent. Also if I may be so bold, my thread in the rogue's gallery details an eighty-year stretch in that city that might give you some ideas on running an evil campaign.

Grummok, Gargoyle Assassin NPC (The rise of a master assassin) Complete 04/16/03 ( 1 2 3 4 )

 

[Endur]

Drow Details

I highly recommend the TSR boxed set "Menzoberanzan". If you don't have access to a copy of this, you can probably get an electronic download of the pdf's.

Also, the Dragon/Living Greyhawk articles on the Vault of the Drow (#298+) are excellent.

If you only have one female PC, you might even want to let her play a Matron Mother. Then the male PCs become her henchmen/associates.

 

[Cernunnos]

Having the female PC be a matron mother would be a good city style campaign, with lots of intruige and backstabbing. However, probably wouldn't be such a hot idea for a standard "wander around the Underdark" campaign.
If you need a device to keep everyone working together, just have them all work for the same house. Have the houses matron mother explain to them in no uncertain terms that failure to get the mission done (which will probably require the skills of each of the characters, so they'll need each other) will result in unpleasantness such as being fed to the pet giant spiders or being flayed alive.
There are reasons you could have non-drow in the party... there are a few illithids that work with drow houses (though, don't know if somebody would want to play that high an ECL). Also, the duergar DO trade extensivley with the drow, when they aren't trying to kill each other. Woulnd't be too unusual for a drow to have a duergar vassal. A deep gnome character would probably be more unusual, unless he were either evil himself (and served as the groups "front man" because it would be assumed that he'd be good) or if the rest of the characters were good renegades. Goblinoids are pretty common in drow households too, and I can imagine some drow taking a particularly vicious one along in a party as cannon fod... I mean tank
A few good resources for the drow/undedark:
Drow of the Underdark
Menzoberranzan
Drizz't Do'Urden's Guide to the Underdark
Planescape - Dead Gods (part of the adventure takes place in the drow city Erelhei-Cinlu, which is in Greyhawk, and the Spiderweb Pit, Lolth's home plane)
Faith's & Pantheons - the newest 3E incarnation of the Drow pantheon
Races of Faerun - has some new drow info in it
City of the Spider Queen - halfway interesting adventure (could have been done better IMHO) but might be worth checking out
Queen of the Spiders - 1E supermodule that tied together the Giants and Drow series. A bit unbalanced at times, but you might be able to mine it for ideas
Night Below - A whole ready made Underdark campaign. While the first 1/3 of it takes place on the surface, the rest of it has the party in the Underdark (primary villains are the aboleth). Could be interesting if you did some rewrites to it.
Ruins of Myth Drannor - In 3E Realms, its been invaded by the drow, who are trying to to warp the ruined city's mythal (think living magical aura/force field) for their own evil ends.