A Neutral Evil character is going to be hard to fit into a party, unless the game is an evil game. While a lawful evil character is going to go along with the party if it helps their goal and a chaotic evil character is going to mess with everything, a neutral evil character just wants to be evil. So the second the rest of the party does anything altruistic the neutral evil character is just going to be out or going to stab them in the back and hand them over to the BBEG.

Now, that doesn’t mean that the Neutral Evil alignment isn’t one that you can’t play in a game. But they are going to have a desire to be the BBEG themselves and that would be their goal. And they would just focus on that versus anything else that the players are doing. So, even if the players are going to destroy the artifact that the BBEG needs for his power and our neutral evil character wants to claim it as their own, they aren’t going to be apt to step in and help on a side quest that is good. And while they might put up with it once in a while, they are going to leave the party, at least with normal motivations for a neutral evil character, and find their own evil party.

So, if you do want to play a neutral evil character, it’s going to be a lot of work for you, in a mixed party. You are going to have to come up with the reasons why your character is going to stick around, because it’s going to be hard for the DM to throw consistent hooks for you. Because the hooks are going to be basically the opposite for any good character. Whether that means your character sits back and stays out of combat as long as they can in a good cause, or don’t help negotiate the release of kidnapped children, or it means that your character just goes off to further their evil goals while those things happen, that’s going to be up to you.

For me, I think the way that I would make this work is to have my neutral evil character to be the researcher. So if I’m there, I can join the party on stuff, but otherwise, I’d send them away from the party during times of the party doing good to research what is needed to find that artifact or whatever the BBEG needs, so that we can further that line of the quest, because that’s what I would care about. It would also lead closer to the moment when I stab the party in the back so that I can enact the same plot.

As for what classes work? A fallen Paladin or a Paladin of an evil deity would make a lot of sense, someone who has been corrupted. The thief rogue who is in it just for themselves. But someone like an assassin rogue would work, and it could be that they just assassinate for fun or to get more money for their evil plan. But being an assassin in and of itself is more of a lawful role. Like all D&D alignments, all of them are going to be possible to use, even if some of them, like Cleric, don’t work as well.

Finally, just to drive home the point. A neutral evil character is all about the evil. They are going to have their evil goals, but the evil goals aren’t tied into some other thing, it is just about being evil. A lawful evil character might want to take over the lands because they think that they can get rich and revenge on someone who did them wrong, but a lawful evil character isn’t going to care about the end goal, they are going to care about being evil, so even if they don’t end up ruling the lands, if they get a sufficient amount of suffering into the world, that’s what they wanted anyways.

Would you allow a neutral evil character into your game with other characters who aren’t evil? Have you played a neutral evil character in a game with non-evil characters? What did you have to do to make that work?

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Everything it gives you really works the best that way. Even your skills such as being able to use a disguise kit really push you towards being a rogue. I think that’s one of the weaknesses of some of these backgrounds, they align too closely with a particular class, and in the case of urchin, I think it’s probably the most glaringly obvious example of a background like that. I personally think the best feature to this background is that you get general knowledge on city planning and layouts. That sounds weird that it is one of the cooler things, but being able to walk into a town, and within a few minutes be able to generally guess the layout, that’s fun.

So what are some non-rogue classes that you can turn into an interesting backstory with this background?

When I was young, I ran away from home to the big city to become part of the circus. It turns out that the circus doesn’t just allow every runaway into their troupe without you having some skill first. I had spent the little money that I’d taken from my parents to get to the city, so I had to start panhandling to try and get money. I must not have been all that good at it because a monastery took pity on me and let me stay at their place. They offered to train me and give me a roof over my head, as long as I continued to earn my way. It was doing some odd jobs around the monastery, and if I wanted more money, I had to continue to panhandle. Soon I’d found my own spot to sleep out in the town and while I stayed working with the monastery for training, I spent my days with the other kids who were earning money on the streets. One day a man came and offered a lot of the kids money to do some work for him. I didn’t really need the extra money and I could always go back to the monastery, so I turned him down. But a lot of kids went with him. He came back a week later and offered the deal again. Then after doing that and getting fewer and fewer takers I saw one of his guards taking kids by force. I realized that the kids he had been taking weren’t coming back either.Now I want to know what has happened to my friends and stop this man.

Alignment: Neutral Good
Class: Monk

I was an unwanted child. My parents already had three kids, and apparently I was an accident. I understand why they didn’t want another child, now, thinking back on it. They weren’t able to feed us all, and they had to send out my oldest sibling to work before she was done with her education. I felt like I wasn’t wanted, which I wasn’t, and even though my parents and siblings said that they loved me, I didn’t feel it. I ran away from home, just into the city we were in. I was hopeful that I’d be able to find someone who wanted me. I wasn’t able to do that, so I just hung out and begged for money or scraps of food. It was a horrible lifestyle, but I refused to go back to my family if they really didn’t want me. I heard from other urchins that they had tried to find me for a little bit, but given up assuming I’d been kidnapped. Eventually I felt bad, but instead of going back, I started going to where my oldest sister was a kitchen help. It was a school that taught magic. So I’d sit along the side of the building, listening to my sister work in the kitchen. But then I heard something more interesting. It was a classroom that had it’s windows open near the kitchen. Soon I was sitting under that window learning about the theories of wizardry. I was so curious that I bought a little notebook and started writing down what they were teaching. It took me forever practicing in back alleys, but eventually I was able to cast a spell. One day I realized that my sister hadn’t come to the kitchen for a few days, so I went off to look for my family, just to make sure they were all right. There had been a fire in the poor district of town and their house had burned down, but according to some people they hadn’t been killed. I decided it was time to return home, and I realized how much I missed seeing my sister every day so now I’m looking through the town to find where they might have gone.

Alignment: Neutral Neutral/Chaotic Neutral/Lawful Neutral
Class: Wizard

The under city is a place that no respectable person goes. Thankfully for everyone, I’m not a respectable person. My horns show that I’ve been demon marked and therefore I am bad. I wasn’t really given a choice in that, people always told me that I was a monster. Things down in the under city are even terrible for me. I don’t get enough food, and I have to scavenge what I can. There was a plague that’s broken out down here before, and I barely escaped with my life. In fact, when I got sick, everyone left me for dead, because the plague always killed. A kind doctor came to me and said that if I were willing to help him in the future, he’d be able to help me. I agreed because I didn’t want to die. I didn’t realize what I had done though. A few months later he came asking me to burn down a temple. Now, I’m not very religious, but burning down a temple seemed like a bad idea.  I told him no, but he insisted and my plague came back to me, and I felt my body withering away again. I promised again to help him and burned down the temple that night. Now I need to find a more permanent solution to my illness because I don’t want to do more like that.

Alignment: Chaotic Neutral
Class: Warlock
Race: Tiefling

The worst thing that can ever happen to a dwarf is that they are made casteless. It doesn’t happen often because you have to do something very wrong. That’s what I did, something very wrong. I was part of a raiding party out in the  mines fighting off a band of Drow who were coming up from the underdark. Things were going poorly for us, but as a dwarf you never leave a comrade behind. I was scared though, so I took off running and left left the four remaining members of my troop fighting. They were able to kill off enough drow to drive them back, but when they came back and found me hiding, my warrior caste was removed and I was sent down into the slums as a casteless. I want to return to where I was before, but you have to do something heroic and I don’t think I can do that on my own.

Alignment: Neutral Good
Class: Fighter
Race: Dwarf

There are some ideas for playing an urchin who wasn’t a rogue. What have you done for an urchin backstory before? Have you played a character where them being an urchin was an important part of it?

This also wraps up the D&D backgrounds, I hope that you’ve enjoyed them.

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Von’thre and Nori find out that what they think is happening isn’t quite what it seems.

Syldi on the other hand has to spend some time with the enemy.

If you have questions for Nerdologists: Dungeons and Flagons emails them to nerdologists@gmail.com or find us on Facebook or Twitter! We’ll be doing a recap and Q&A every twenty-five episodes.

Our players are:

Ashley – Nori the Mountain Dwarf Champion Fighter

Kristen (@Kefka73) – Syldi the Half-Elf Rogue Thief

Clint – Von’thre the High Elf Divination Wizard

The DM:

Peder (@TheScando)

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As our adventurers try a daring escape after stealing some books, can they escape the school where Von’thre studied.

The audio isn’t the best on this one, but you can everyone, the balance just isn’t the best because of how the audio set-up was.

If you have questions for Nerdologists: Dungeons and Flagons emails them to nerdologists@gmail.com or find us on Facebook or Twitter! We’ll be doing a recap and Q&A every twenty-five episodes.

Our players are:

Ashley – Nori the Mountain Dwarf Champion Fighter

Kristen (@Kefka73) – Syldi the Half-Elf Rogue Thief

Clint – Von’thre the High Elf Divination Wizard

The DM:

Peder (@TheScando)

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Von’thre takes advantage of the opportunity ahead of him to gain some more knowledge, because that is the smart and safe thing to do.

If you have questions for Nerdologists: Dungeons and Flagons emails them to nerdologists@gmail.com or find us on Facebook or Twitter! We’ll be doing a recap and Q&A every twenty-five episodes.

Our players are:

Ashley – Nori the Mountain Dwarf Champion Fighter

Kristen (@Kefka73) – Syldi the Half-Elf Rogue Thief

Clint – Von’thre the High Elf Divination Wizard

The DM:

Peder (@TheScando)

Please give us reviews and let us know how you listen to the show!

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After making some shocking discoveries deep in the underground, our adventurers begin to wonder if they actually know there way back out of there.

If you have questions for Nerdologists: Dungeons and Flagons emails them to nerdologists@gmail.com or find us on Facebook or Twitter! We’ll be doing a recap and Q&A every twenty-five episodes.

Our players are:

Ashley – Nori the Mountain Dwarf Champion Fighter

Kristen (@Kefka73) – Syldi the Half-Elf Rogue Thief

Clint – Von’thre the High Elf Divination Wizard

The DM:

Peder (@TheScando)

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When things seem to be at their worst, can they figure a way out? Von’thre, Syldi, and Nori find themselves in a rocky situation that they need to find their way out of.

If you have questions for Nerdologists: Dungeons and Flagons emails them to nerdologists@gmail.com or find us on Facebook or Twitter! We’ll be doing a recap and Q&A every twenty-five episodes.

Our players are:

Ashley – Nori the Mountain Dwarf Champion Fighter

Kristen (@Kefka73) – Syldi the Half-Elf Rogue Thief

Clint – Von’thre the High Elf Divination Wizard

The DM:

Peder (@TheScando)

Please give us reviews and let us know how you listen to the show!

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The criminal background is one that in a game where you want to be the heroes, needs to be worked with carefully. There’s a thin line between being a hero and being a villain. In the Curse of Strahd game that I’m running, they were in a shop, the rogue character (don’t even think with criminal background) steals something, gets caught because they rolled a bad stealth check. Happened again when the rogue tried to flirt their way into getting a free drink from the married bartender who’s wife then promptly kicked that character out again.

When thinking about playing someone whose background is criminal, think about how you can play into the trope in some ways, but also it might be more interesting to play against type. In the case of the rogue in Curse of Strahd, hopefully she’ll start playing against type so that her character then realizes that they kind of suck as a criminal and reform their ways. Think about a criminal as someone who has come from a past of crime and is now an adventurer. What changed for them, are they still indebted to anyone, are they still an active criminal? There are a lot of ways that you can go beyond, I just like the looks of shiny things so I take them.

Now, I’ve just given the example of the thief criminal, but that might not be your thing. Maybe you don’t ever steal anything, but you’ve been a smuggler for a little while and you get caught up having to rescue a princess from a man in a black suit who then turns out to be her father. I might have heard that one from somewhere else. You can also a be a blackmailer or an enforcer for the local thieves guild. These probably set-up more interesting stories a lot of the time than the standard burglar who steals rings off of rich women in town because the rings are shiny.

I love nature and I knew that when I grew up, I wanted to protect nature. However, that wasn’t making a lot of money for me. People don’t pay you money when you save the rabbit caught in a snare from certain death, and they think that you’re driving off the goblins in the woods so that they are safe (still won’t pay you), not so that there are fewer creatures trying to kill the deer. One day, there was a band of brigands who came into the woods. They injured an owlbear and placed it into a cage. I could see it was gravely wounded and I went to release it and help it. I’m not that sneaky, however, and they caught me, but not until I had bandaged up the owlbears wound.  They kept  me around to keep the owlbear alive for the collector whom they had captured it for. They saw the work I had done and offered me a choice, keep helping them smuggle animals and keep them alive or they’d kill me. I knew that they wouldn’t stop smuggling animals if I was dead, so I agreed to help. It wasn’t until they got in over their head fighting a roc that I was able to make my escape, and that was a decade later. Now I’m going to get revenge on that collector and release his collection back into the wild where they belong, but I need some help doing that.

Class: Druid
Alignment: Neutral Good

It’s a silly life, but it pays way better than you’d think. That’s what I told my friends when they wondered how I lived so well, while I was a hairdresser. I have the gift of gab, and the court ladies love to have their friends over and talk, and I talk with them, but mainly I listen and I remember. I’m just the hairdresser, why would they be worried about little old me. You wouldn’t believe the gossip and rumors and scandals that you hear about as a hairdresser, but  I’ve found that it’s good to believe and remember them. When you know something really juicy, you can get a lot of money. The wife whose husbands position will be ruined if the king found out that he was fixing horse races, including the one at the royal tournament. They won good money from that, and I got good money from them. They tell you to quit when you’re ahead, but this seemed like the perfect con. An anonymous source threatened to ruin them, they paid that anonymous source money, and I kept cutting their hair. Then, whoops, my gift of gab got me in trouble with a duchess, accidentally spilled a detail that she really didn’t need to know. Now, it’s off with my head, if they can catch me.

Class: Bard
Alignment: Chaotic Neutral/Evil
This maybe should be an alignment that’s chaotic evil. It’s a little bit Loki like in just being someone who is out for a good time and doesn’t really care about others. However, if you run this as the characters only scam/criminal activity and they are doing it because it fell into their laps, it could be chaotic neutral.

I’m the wheel man. When there’s something shady going down in town and they need a fast and effective getaway, they call me. My rules are simple, no kidnappings, no killing, no stealing from those in need. If you meet those requirements, I’ll deal with you. I guarantee that you will get away, if not, it’s going to be my head on the block too. One night, I’m doing my job, waiting along a side hill, just out of sight from the mayors house. I hear some screaming up at the house, guess that someone caught them and they would be booking it back to me. Sure enough, five minutes later, the two toughs who hired me came crashing through the woods, though, I knew this was different than normal. In my torch light, I could see that one had their sword drawn, and there was blood on it and on them. I didn’t bother waiting for them, that’s my rule, no killing. I road down the one guy who was injured and shouted a warning what I would do to the other if he told on me. Turns out, he was more scared of his boss than he was of me, if I’d known who his boss had been from the start, I wouldn’t have taken the job. I heard within hours, he squealed to the cops and not only that, but a crime boss from the big city was coming out to our little town. I booked it and now I’m on the run. I hope with my mask that I’ll have remained an unknown and harder to stop, especially traveling with these goody two shoes

Class: Fighter (they commonly get access to steeds that would make them a solid option)
Alignment: Lawful Evil
I’ve said that I try and avoid the evil alignments because if you’re running a campaign with a bunch of heroes and one person is evil, it can make it tough. However, I think this offers an interesting role playing option for someone who is p laying this background. This character is clearly evil and clearly has well defined rules, if you’re up for it as a player, make this your characters redemption story. Slowly change them from evil into a lawful neutral so that instead of just being worried about their own skin, that now they are worried about more and have put their past behind them. It could offer some really awesome role playing moments if you get into it.

As a kid, my parents and everyone in my town was afraid of me. That was fine with me, I liked being on my own. I was playing in the woods one day by myself, creeping along following some of the hunters who were in the woods when I realized I’d picked up my own tail. There were some bad men following the hunters and I decided to get the drop on them. It was easier than I thought to kill a man, but that made people in town even more afraid of me. They sent me off to the temples, hoping that one of them would be able to fix me. Then I found the temple of the Raven Queen. Her priestesses told me of how there were those who had lived past their time and who needed to die. They were bad people who had made unholy deals to stay alive, and they needed someone on their payroll to take out these men. I became their hired killer and I was good at it, until I ran across the one who they only called the ancient one. None of their other hired killers had managed to get the ancient one, and I thought I could do it. I quickly realized that I couldn’t and I ran away, now I’m trying to find those who can help me take care of the ancient one before I return to the temple of the Raven Queen.

Class: Paladin
Alignment: Lawful Neutral
Just a little bit of information, the Raven Queen is the Goddess of death, and sees death as a natural thing. She really frowns upon it when those who should be dead aren’t dead because of some nefarious means in this example, and because of that, she’d be sending out someone who isn’t evil to do this work.

Have you played someone with a criminal background before? What are some interesting twists on the criminal background to make a more fully developed character than someone who is just greedy and wants to steal shiny things?

Share questions, ideas for articles, or comments with us!

Email us at nerdologists@gmail.com
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Down at the docks, Von’thre, Syldi, and Nori seem to have found the right place where Twithel had been working, but now they start finding some more interesting things going on down by the docks.

If you have questions for Nerdologists: Dungeons and Flagons emails them to nerdologists@gmail.com or find us on Facebook or Twitter! We’ll be doing a recap and Q&A every twenty-five episodes.

Our players are:

Ashley – Nori the Mountain Dwarf Champion Fighter

Kristen (@Kefka73) – Syldi the Half-Elf Rogue Thief

Clint – Von’thre the High Elf Divination Wizard

The DM:

Peder (@TheScando)

Please give us reviews and let us know how you listen to the show!

You can find us on iTunes

Or on Stitcher

Reviews help with the algorithms that allow more people to find our show. Every review you give helps, and we thank you for them! We have three reviews currently on iTunes; once we get five, we’ll be able to see them, and properly thank those who have given us reviews.

Share questions, ideas for articles, or comments with us!

Email us at nerdologists@gmail.com
Follow us on Twitter at @NerdologistCast
Message me directly on Twitter at @TheScando
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We are trying a new thing with Amazon Links. If you’re interested in what we talked about in our articles or used for the podcast, please consider making a purchase through our links. Purchases help support our website and offset our costs. Thanks!

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After a weeks time, Nori has become attuned to her sword. She finds out some interesting things about it at the Wizarding School Von’thre used to work at. What does it all mean, and where did the sword come from?

If you have questions for Nerdologists: Dungeons and Flagons emails them to nerdologists@gmail.com or find us on Facebook or Twitter! We’ll be doing a recap and Q&A every twenty-five episodes.

Our players are:

Ashley – Nori the Mountain Dwarf Champion Fighter

Kristen (@Kefka73) – Syldi the Half-Elf Rogue Thief

Clint – Von’thre the High Elf Divination Wizard

The DM:

Peder (@TheScando)

Please give us reviews and let us know how you listen to the show!

You can find us on iTunes

Or on Stitcher

Reviews help with the algorithms that allow more people to find our show. Every review you give helps, and we thank you for them! We have three reviews currently on iTunes; once we get five, we’ll be able to see them, and properly thank those who have given us reviews.

Share questions, ideas for articles, or comments with us!

Email us at nerdologists@gmail.com
Follow us on Twitter at @NerdologistCast
Message me directly on Twitter at @TheScando
Visit us on Facebook here.

We are trying a new thing with Amazon Links. If you’re interested in what we talked about in our articles or used for the podcast, please consider making a purchase through our links. Purchases help support our website and offset our costs. Thanks!

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