Recently read BoVD, how do others handle alignment?

[Beholder1995]

I recently came by a Book of Vile Darkness for the first time, and was vaguely eager to look through it, as I'd heard that it was a good resource on villain creation, nature of evil in the game, etc. All the book really managed to do for me was accentuate the problems I have with how D&D's standard armament of books treat alignment.

The way I see it, whether you're lawful/chaotic or good/evil can manifest in a few different ways. If I'm lawful, is it because I behave lawfully? Is it because in my mind, I believe in lawfulness, and tote a lawful philosophy? Or is it because my deepest moral convictions are recognizably lawful?

This is particularly important when it comes to villains, because in the real world, when people behave "evilly", it's an incredibly complex process, and that's why good villains in literature and elsewhere are so fascinating. For example, in Victor Hugo's Les Miserables, the primary antagonist is Javert. Javert is cold and heartless, but it stems from his steely conviction to uphold all laws, which can further draw back to his resentment towards his parents. He doesn't "murder" or break rules, but he rejects mercy and is prideful enough to let vengeance bring him to viciously pursue an effectively innocent man.

That's a simplification of an elaborate character, but it highlights the various levels of his morality- outwardly, Javert is strictly legal, if a bit ruthless in his execution. In his mind, he has elaborate arguments on the need to uphold laws and why he is justified, and in his heart, he truly resents people, albeit with a handful of other emotions that are explored in the novel.

So is he evil, according to D&D? We could certainly say he's lawful, but it's hard to judge "evil"-ness when all the examples offered in the D&D books are invariably thoughtless mass murderers.

The Book of Vile Darkness, in precisely the same vein as every other published book I've encountered, completely skirts around these questions by figuring that all villains in D&D are viciously evil genocidal maniacs at heart, and the only thing that differentiates between them is how many babies they eat. This makes Magic Circle Against Evil easy to use. The Book of Exalted Deeds treats "goodness" in precisely the same way- unless you're actively campaigning to be a classically-defined saint, you're neutral at best.

Neutrality, I might add, is treated even worse- the "neutral" option is offered for characters who don't care, are "undecided", or have a bizarre pick-and-choose mix of good and evil traits. There's no room for people with character flaws, insecurities, reservations, or conflict- which is to say, the interesting bits of characters that as far as I can tell, players and DMs all enjoy having in their campaigns.

For another example, let's say I'm a basically good person who contentedly obeys the laws that are set in front of me, but personally and strongly believe in looser, "chaotic" ideals that I may not be allowed to implement in my daily life. Am I chaotic good because of what I believe, or lawful good because of how I behave? The way the D&D books seem to handle that is by offering the option of "neutral", even though really in this scenario I'm not neutral at all- in my behavior I'm strictly lawful, and in my mind I'm stringently chaotic.

And things get even more messy when you decide to allot alignment based on a character's deepest convictions, because a "basically" good person can be caught up in a criminal life, a "basically" resentful person can bring themselves to charity, and someone who believes firmly in the goodness of a certain behavior can succumb to temptation without necessarily changing what they believe to be absolutely true. How does/can one deal with that within the D&D rules?

Finally, the only option offered in the Book of Vile Darkness other than "you torture orphans for fun and happily live in a bile-infested skull sewer, or you don't", is a few paragraphs dedicated to "the relative approach", which calls for treating evil "to be a relative concept that is wholly dependent on the attitude of the observer".

This is, frankly, useless, because a lot of stuff about basic morality is objective, it's just always buried under a mountain of context and qualifications and other complexities. If someone gave me a campaign in which there were no alignments and there was just some society where rape was seen as a social good and that's just perspective, it would be preposterous. Murder is wrong, no matter what sentient creature you ask, it's just that what if you were ordered by your king or the guy killed your friend or it's part of the greater good etc. No one seems to want to address those complexities, so, again, the books settle on obnoxiously simple systems of morality and comically bleak gameworlds with endless streams of villains who will execute thousands of commoners on a whim. It completely cheapens the potential depth of the game, in my opinion.

Obviously, when it comes down an actual game session, the guidelines set down by the books can be happily ignored, but I find that I can't flip through any of the published books without really resenting how they treat alignment. The only good resources I've ever found on the topic were the villain and NPC workshops offered on this very site. How do others handle this? At some point, a Magic Circle Against Evil ought to work. What's an appropriate way to handle complex characters within the confines of D&D?

[Little Brother]

Yeah. I love BoVD for the spells(And the Maximum Happy Fun Chamber). Its(And the Book of Exalted Cheese's) idea of morality is... Yeah.

You are far from the first person to think that.

This is why I like the twenty-seven point alignment system.

[Eldonauran]

In my opinion, every character is not going to fit into any of the 9 alignments 100%. Even good characters are capable of evil actions. Its the seriousness and repitition of these actions that can and will force an alignment change.

Certain things, like a total disregard of innocent life, will force you into a category. To what lengths are you willing to go in order to get something done, will force you into a category, regardless of certain exceptions. Sure, you're an evil bastard that eats your foe's hearts and tea-bagging the enemies corpse, but you aren't a total **** when it comes to children and seem quite pleasant. You're still Evil.

I think characters that have MANY character flaws, insecurities, reservations or conflicts belong in a Neutral category. Whether thats on the Good/evil axis or Law/Chaos axis depends on the flaw.

I tend not to use alignments as a straightjacket. Its just a simple mechanic in order for the D&D universe to correctly label you for processing... :smallamused:

[Reaver225]

This is, frankly, useless, because a lot of stuff about basic morality is objective, it's just always buried under a mountain of context and qualifications and other complexities. If someone gave me a campaign in which there were no alignments and there was just some society where rape was seen as a social good and that's just perspective, it would be preposterous. Murder is wrong, no matter what sentient creature you ask, it's just that what if you were ordered by your king or the guy killed your friend or it's part of the greater good etc. No one seems to want to address those complexities, so, again, the books settle on obnoxiously simple systems of morality and comically bleak gameworlds with endless streams of villains who will execute thousands of commoners on a whim. It completely cheapens the potential depth of the game, in my opinion.

This bit is the paragraph where alarm bells started to ring. There are entire schools of thought on ethics and morality about ways of acting and behaving in the real world that disagree with your above statement about murder for example. Not to say you are wrong but there are entire books and schools of thought that others may hold to rather than absolutes.

But in any place where good and evil is defined by the gods, the god's will is the source of the whole "detect good/evil" and so on via divine magic. So whatever they say is what counts.

This may lead to difficulties if even the evil gods disown you, though.

[Eldonauran]

But in any place where good and evil is defined by the gods, the god's will is the source of the whole "detect good/evil" and so on via divine magic. So whatever they say is what counts.

Just wanted to add onto this. Good/Evil and Law/Chaos are not objective concepts in the D&D universe. As far as that universe is concerned; you are either Good, Evil or somewhere between, and you are either Lawful, Chaotic or something inbetween. Alignment is part of the mechanics of how the D&D universe works, just like how gravity is part of the mechanics of the real world.

Evil gods might encourage evil acts in evil societies, but the acts are still evil, despite that socities perspectives. And it is truly a tragedy if the person commiting the acts in their god's name thinks he is doing the right thing, but this is the nature of evil. It warps, it corrupts, it ruins and it destroys.

One should never, ever try to put real world morality into D&D. To that end lies ruin. We are all roleplayers, ours is the power to suspend belief!

Also, opinions!

[Wookie-ranger]

basically i agree.
The alignment system is oversimplified and stupid; but it 'works' for game purposes.

except for the second to last paragraph, however. I have the exact opposite view. I think that all morality is subjective.
Is stealing bad? yes. Was robin hood bad? ...
Is killing another person bad? yes. Even if that person is trying to kill someone else? ...
Is the goblin tribe bad for raiding the nearby village every spring? yes. even if without that their children would starve and they are to stupid to find of another way? ...
Is it bad send your spare clothing to 3rd world countries? no. even if it ruins the local textile industry and many loose their only livelihood? ...
Is it bad to kill a child? yes. Want to time travel back to see hitler? ...

It all depends on the circumstances nothing is good, nothing evil. Morality is in the eye of the beholder. In the real world this does simply not exist. Planets are born, planets are consumed in exploding stars. Animals life and eat other animals, until they are killed by a virus that only tries to make more of itself, not knowing what an animal even is.

Morality and ethics are made by humans, for humans, and humans are the ones that think about it; without humans, morality and ethics does not exist.

[Craft (Cheese)]

except for the second to last paragraph, however. I have the exact opposite view. I think that all morality is subjective.
Is stealing bad? yes. Was robin hood bad? ...
Is killing another person bad? yes. Even if that person is trying to kill someone else? ...
Is the goblin tribe bad for raiding the nearby village every spring? yes. even if without that their children would starve and they are to stupid to find of another way? ...
Is it bad send your spare clothing to 3rd world countries? no. even if it ruins the local textile industry and many loose their only livelihood? ...
Is it bad to kill a child? yes. Want to time travel back to see hitler? ...

All of these are examples of context. The point of "Murder is Wrong" is that, all else remaining equal, people dying is a bad thing. Of course if your choices are "Kill one person" and "Let 10,000 people die" you should go with the first option but that doesn't mean murdering them isn't wrong.


It all depends on the circumstances nothing is good, nothing evil. Morality is in the eye of the beholder. In the real world this does simply not exist. Planets are born, planets are consumed in exploding stars. Animals life and eat other animals, until they are killed by a virus that only tries to make more of itself, not knowing what an animal even is.

Morality and ethics are made by humans, for humans, and humans are the ones that think about it; without humans, morality and ethics does not exist.

Morality is a mental construct, but that's not the same thing as being subjective. "I think 2 + 2 = 3, and I'm just as correct as you are because numbers don't exist outside of our heads."

[Beholder1995]

Is stealing bad? yes. Was robin hood bad? ...
Is killing another person bad? yes. Even if that person is trying to kill someone else? ...
Is the goblin tribe bad for raiding the nearby village every spring? yes. even if without that their children would starve and they are to stupid to find of another way? ...
etc.

This, I would think, falls under "mountain of context and qualifications". When I say morality is objective, I mean that it's only objective in the absolute broadest, most general of terms, when you squint at it from a distance. The last thing I want to do is hint at any kind of discussion of morality.


But in any place where good and evil is defined by the gods, the gods' will is the source of the whole "detect good/evil"

I may be overanalyzing this, but I figure what is "evil" stems from the fact that suffering and unhappiness exist as a virtue of, let's say physics. Life grew, life developed sentience, life realized certain things made it uncomfortable. Add a few centuries of philosophy, we have some idea of what people might consider right and wrong. If the gods dictate what is good and evil, which is to say, they engineered all of existence so that at some point in the course of time, lesser beings could use the gods' arbitrary definitions to smite each other, that seems to me like a less believable (or maybe just literary. I'm a sucker for characterization) world than one in which love, hate, etc. exist in their own right and are things to which the gods themselves are susceptible.

This 27-point alignment system intrigues me, although I can't say I've ever heard of it. What is?

[Little Brother]

It's basically good, neutral, evil, but Exalted and Vile are full on alignments. Evil is someone who really doesn't care about doing "the right" thing, and is otherwise "evil," mildly. Only slightly south of neutral. Good is the same. Will go slightly out of their way to do good things, but isn't selfless/totally awesome McGoodDude. That's Exalted. Vile is scenery-munching psycho. Belkar/Xykon, whereas Redcloak is a nuanced, interesting character, and is only evil(From the good-guy's perspective, anyways). There's a similar thing with Chaos/Law. Never came up with names for them, but Zeal (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=7577205) came up with a similar thing, so let's go with Axiomatic and Anarchic, like him.

That's 25. 26 and 27 are Seelie and Unseelie(Or Blue and Orange, or Toaster and Necktie, or what have you). It's different. For different things, like incomprehensible outsiders, Cthulu, more traditional fey, etc.

[VGLordR2]

This is why I like the twenty-seven point alignment system.
Do you have a link for this? A quick google search on my end didn't turn anything up.

EDIT:

Ninja'd by the answer I was looking for.

[Wookie-ranger]

Morality is a mental construct, but that's not the same thing as being subjective. "I think 2 + 2 = 3, and I'm just as correct as you are because numbers don't exist outside of our heads."

Except that if i have 2 apples and i get 2 more apples i have 4 apples. this is an unchangeable fact. If you translate it into another language, it will still be 4 apples. If no humans were ever around the see them there will still be, 4 apples.
Your thoughts are yours, and yours alone. If you say that in your thoughts 2+2=3 that I cannot argue with that. If I say that 2+2=5, you cannot say that my thoughts are wrong. Neither of them is a true reflection of reality; in that morality is different, because it is not an observable 'thing'. Ethics therefore cannot be observed, measured, numbered, and ever person that looks at has his/her own few and will see different things, even if some might agree with each other. Your own thinking and imagination are subjective. As is morality, because it is only a thought.
The bare fact that we are talking about it and have different opinions is proof that it is subjective.

[Hiro Protagonest]

This is, frankly, useless, because a lot of stuff about basic morality is objective, it's just always buried under a mountain of context and qualifications and other complexities. If someone gave me a campaign in which there were no alignments and there was just some society where rape was seen as a social good and that's just perspective, it would be preposterous. Murder is wrong, no matter what sentient creature you ask, it's just that what if you were ordered by your king or the guy killed your friend or it's part of the greater good etc. No one seems to want to address those complexities, so, again, the books settle on obnoxiously simple systems of morality and comically bleak gameworlds with endless streams of villains who will execute thousands of commoners on a whim. It completely cheapens the potential depth of the game, in my opinion.

In medieval times, rape was considered a spoil of war. It wasn't necessarily evil. That was also a time where unmarried 16 year-old girls were considered dead weights to be married off at the nearest opportunity.

Alignment is not objective. Many people consider sex before marriage a bad thing, and view marriage as a holy act that defines commitment. In another few centuries, marriage might be considered an evil act, because it was made, at its most fundamental level, as a way of making a woman the property of a man. Social ideas change, whether superfluous (fashions) or deep (good and evil). You can't claim objective alignment.

[Beholder1995]

If I'm lawful, is it because I behave lawfully? Is it because in my mind, I believe in lawfulness, and tote a lawful philosophy? Or is it because my deepest moral convictions are recognizably lawful?

So, how about that OP?...

[SiuiS]

This is, frankly, useless, because a lot of stuff about basic morality is objective, it's just always buried under a mountain of context and qualifications and other complexities.

Nope!
See, dungeons and dragons explicitly tells you to your face that it uses an objective moral system. Complaining that an objective moral system doesn't handle subjective morality well is saying the obvious and missing the point.

Does Javert promote suffering through his actions out to a degree where he could recognize the consequences? Does he do it anyway because his ideas are more important than whether someone else is hurt - the law is the law, after all - and others have to put up with it? Evil.

If in D&D you decide that your ends are new important than the people who will suffer for them, you are evil. Because your molecules all have an evil resonance which is affected by the polarity of your thoughts and actions, and emit evil radiation that can be picked up by those who know how to look for it.

The book of vile darkness is good for Vile people. Truly terrible fiends. For a flawed character who happens to be the bad guy, you just need the players handbook.


Alignment is not objective.

It is supposed to be, though.
Alignment is spelled out in the rules. People say "no, that's not what [alignment] is at all!" and the rules go 'uh, yes it is.' and that's misinterpreted.

How they mean it is the same as I you argues with some other rule construct. It's like the rules describe what a fighter in D&D is, an people go "no, that's not what a fighter is at all!". Kinda ludicrous in that context. :smallwink:

Is this a good thing? For D&D as a tactical combat simulator, yes. This is the world you live in, go fight monsters. It's okay they have [evil] tags.

For dramatic role playing, no, unless the differences between alignment and morality are highlighted through player choice. That has a very WoD bleak feel to it though.

[sonofzeal]

Honestly, I think the two biggest problems with D&D alignment are {a} lack of granularity, and {b} insufficiently rigorous (or consistent) definitions. Ideally Alignment would be on something like a percentage scale ("I'm 35% lawful and 78% good!"), but this would make the job of defining it rigorously even more difficult. It would also mess up a lot of game mechanics that intersect with alignment.

My Expanded Alignment System (see my sig) attempts to strike a reasonable compromise. It needs a bit of work on the Law/Chaos axis so I might be re-vamping it at some point, but I'm pretty proud of the core analysis. It doesn't need to be perfect in order to be a significant improvement.

[Namfuak]

Alignment makes a lot more sense if you assume that the words used for good and evil are actually misnomers. Some spells in BoED force alignment changes in evil characters against their will. In my opinion, it is evil to force someone to act against their will (and in most philosophy that is agreed upon). So, good characters are not "good," in the common sense of the word, but rather they are the opposite of "evil" - where evil characters strive to gain personal power or to hurt others, good characters strive to create peace in the world through any means necessary, including murder, mind control, arson, and even going so far as destroying cities (do you think a paladin would fall for burning a drow city?). Are they "good?" No. Are they diametrically opposed to evil? Yes.

Law and chaos are more difficult to qualify, mostly because no one has really done a good job of it yet.

[Suddo]

So for my two main cents I'm going to say this: D&D alignment is fine so long as it doesn't mess with mechanics. The Paladin having to choose between 2 evil acts is crap especially considering the paladin isn't that good of a class to start out with.

I personally remove pretty much all alignment based things from my game and let my player do what they want, then again I also play where the world has no gods so...

[Wookie-ranger]

to throw some more confusion into the mix.

anyone looked at the atonement spell lately?
It allows a willing creature change their alignment. No compulsion can force you to change, you need to want to change AND you still need the spell?

Does that mean that nothing in D&D can change their alignment, even if they honestly want to change? does this mean that no creature has a real free will and is only evil/good/lawful/chaotic because their alignment forces them to act that way?

[SiuiS]

to throw some more confusion into the mix.

anyone looked at the atonement spell lately?
It allows a willing creature change their alignment. No compulsion can force you to change, you need to want to change AND you still need the spell?

Does that mean that nothing in D&D can change their alignment, even if they honestly want to change? does this mean that no creature has a real free will and is only evil/good/lawful/chaotic because their alignment forces them to act that way?

No, it just allows instantaneous change.
A character going from CE to CG has to, by the rules, perform enough good actions against their normal character portrayal that the DM shifts them, first to CN and then to CG.
Atonement is instantaneous and allows you to skip the in-between steps. It works on similar principles as baptism.

[Little Brother]

Double-check Atonement on the SRD. It's pretty clear that you CAN change at will, and Atonement is an RP excuse/Get out of jail free card for Pallys and clerics.

[Morithias]

Sit down cause this is going to be a long one.

In my setting "good/evil" are now "holy/unholy" and "lawful/chaotic" are now "secondary/primary"

Your 'alignment' is determined at birth, it is part of your truename basically, it's a mark on your soul, genetic basically.

"Holy" people are tied to the heavens and have celestial blood somewhere in their blood streams over 1000's of years.

"Unholy" NOT EVIL, have infernal blood in their bloodstreams from 1000's of years.

"Primary" means you are tied to the 3 primary emotions - Rage, Hope, Fear. It means you are primal and act on baser instincts.

"Secondary" means you are tied to the 3 secondary emotions - Desire, Willpower, Compassion. It means you tend to think about things longer and try to look at the big picture.

Your alignment can be changed with a "ritual of renaming" spell from Tomb of Magic.

Nothing about alignment determines how you can act, only what kind of powers are available to you. You can't wield smite holy without unholy name, and you can't wield smite unholy without holy name (The weakness against each other, was created so the heavens and hells would never go into endless war against each other)

It is totally possible to play an assassin who only paralyses and bounty hunts, or a blackguard whose job is to hunt angels gone bad in my setting.

[sonofzeal]

Double-check Atonement on the SRD. It's pretty clear that you CAN change at will, and Atonement is an RP excuse/Get out of jail free card for Pallys and clerics.
Correction - you can change, but not necessarily "at will", "instantly", or "on a whim".

If I am a Lawful person, becoming Chaotic is more than just a simple decision most of the time. It involves systematically retraining myself, establishing whole new patterns of thought and behaviour. It can be done, of course, but it's not quick and it's not trivial.

Imagine if characters could choose their alignment on a moment's notice. "Quick, there's a Balor! Let's all choose to be Chaotic Evil before it uses its Blasphemy on us!" That's very obviously not RAI, and I somehow doubt it's particularly RAW either.

Atonement is a valid shortcut.

[Little Brother]

It is most certainly not RAI, but after rereading the rules, I see no other RAW.

[sonofzeal]

It is most certainly not RAI, but after rereading the rules, I see no other RAW.
Can you quote any RAW that supports this?

[Snowbluff]

Your 'alignment' is determined at birth, it is part of your truename basically, it's a mark on your soul, genetic basically.



I object. People are products of their environments. Nature only gets you so far.

[moritheil]

That's a simplification of an elaborate character, but it highlights the various levels of his morality- outwardly, Javert is strictly legal, if a bit ruthless in his execution. In his mind, he has elaborate arguments on the need to uphold laws and why he is justified, and in his heart, he truly resents people, albeit with a handful of other emotions that are explored in the novel.

So is he evil, according to D&D? We could certainly say he's lawful, but it's hard to judge "evil"-ness when all the examples offered in the D&D books are invariably thoughtless mass murderers.

I would say no, because his overriding concern is really law. But that's still a cop-out; we can say this because we have the luxury of knowing what he really thinks. If we only saw his actions we might well judge him evil.


The Book of Vile Darkness, in precisely the same vein as every other published book I've encountered, completely skirts around these questions by figuring that all villains in D&D are viciously evil genocidal maniacs at heart, and the only thing that differentiates between them is how many babies they eat. This makes Magic Circle Against Evil easy to use. The Book of Exalted Deeds treats "goodness" in precisely the same way- unless you're actively campaigning to be a classically-defined saint, you're neutral at best.

Yeah, this is why I think Good and Evil in DnD are basically abbreviations for Red Team, Blue Team. It gets absurd when you try to apply anything but the most basic morality to it (if killing babies is wrong, but red dragon babies are always evil, is the holy war on red dragons justified or not?) and it's not designed for that; it's designed to tell you whom to smite and who explodes when Blasphemy is cast.

I have to say they made a valiant effort in attempting to present it as deeper, by drawing players in, but fundamentally in DnD moral alignment isn't a theoretical thing made real, it's a real experimental thing made theoretical (either smite evil works, or not. Either this person detects as evil, or not.) Contrast this with real life and you'll see that it's doomed to give unsatisfactory results if you think for long enough.


For another example, let's say I'm a basically good person who contentedly obeys the laws that are set in front of me, but personally and strongly believe in looser, "chaotic" ideals that I may not be allowed to implement in my daily life. Am I chaotic good because of what I believe, or lawful good because of how I behave? The way the D&D books seem to handle that is by offering the option of "neutral", even though really in this scenario I'm not neutral at all- in my behavior I'm strictly lawful, and in my mind I'm stringently chaotic.

It is literally beyond the scope of the system (and possibly never even occurred to some of its writers.) In their defense, in fantasy fiction people often lie to themselves a lot less than in real life.


And things get even more messy when you decide to allot alignment based on a character's deepest convictions, because a "basically" good person can be caught up in a criminal life, a "basically" resentful person can bring themselves to charity, and someone who believes firmly in the goodness of a certain behavior can succumb to temptation without necessarily changing what they believe to be absolutely true. How does/can one deal with that within the D&D rules?

Atonement. I hate to be facetious, but in DnD that's a successful candidate for atonement - he was "really" another alignment all along.



This is, frankly, useless, because a lot of stuff about basic morality is objective, it's just always buried under a mountain of context and qualifications and other complexities. If someone gave me a campaign in which there were no alignments and there was just some society where rape was seen as a social good and that's just perspective, it would be preposterous. Murder is wrong, no matter what sentient creature you ask, it's just that what if you were ordered by your king or the guy killed your friend or it's part of the greater good etc. No one seems to want to address those complexities, so, again, the books settle on obnoxiously simple systems of morality and comically bleak gameworlds with endless streams of villains who will execute thousands of commoners on a whim. It completely cheapens the potential depth of the game, in my opinion.

I think rather that it is the limitation of the game, and you're just seeing it because of how difficult it was for them to try to overwrite said limitation.

This is one of the unanswerable classic questions of morality, incidentally - can one who truly serves a good cause, or a good deity, in his or her heart, really be evil? There are some who say yes; there are some who say no; there are valid arguments both ways. Thousands of years of theological argument have not solved this to everyone's satisfaction, and neither will a few guys writing a gaming sourcebook.


What's an appropriate way to handle complex characters within the confines of D&D?

Arbitrarily assign them to red team or blue team depending on what you want the outcome to be. Then acknowledge all arguments, but favor the line of argument that leans to where you wanted the character to go all along.

If you feel guilty about this, consider that it's more or less how real world trials often work, anyway. :smallmad:

[Little Brother]

Can you quote any RAW that supports this?
Note: Normally, changing alignment is up to the player. This use of atonement simply offers a believable way for a character to change his or her alignment drastically, suddenly, and definitively.There. A believable way. You still can without it.

[Kelb_Panthera]

I object. People are products of their environments. Nature only gets you so far.

Unless I'm mistaken, and the person you quoted can correct me if I'm wrong, he wasn't saying that what he describes is remotely tied to reality. It's just the system that he and/or his players cobbled together to make alignment work for them.

[Manly Man]

I object. People are products of their environments. Nature only gets you so far.

Hence, orcs are usually chaotic evil. If an orc were raised in a good society- at least, where he wouldn't be treated like **** because he is, after all, an orc- he would, most likely, be an upstanding and morally sound citizen, were he raised among others who thought the same way. Perhaps his heritage would have a bit of a chaotic bent, but he would still be a good person, because of how that mindset was hammered into him when he was still learning.

I've gone and experimented with alignment changes, and a lot of the ways it's done are varied. Perhaps a lich had hit a moral horizon, and realized that his evil had done nothing but wreck him. A mind flayer, having an epiphany upon the observation of the thriving communities based on helping one another and acting unselfishly, escaped the elder brain and decided to unite a group of his own kind, following the principles that kindness and a willingness to work with one another rather than scheme behind one another's backs leads to a successful and well-developed community.

In all of my campaigns, good and evil have been treated as a bit of both when it comes to whether or not they're objective or subjective. Yes, for the most part, an evil creature has most likely done things that merit the end of his life, but that doesn't mean killing anything you find to be evil makes you a good person. You're a good person when you put forth the effort to show mercy, to change the defeated for the better, of if they are beyond salvation, at least make their death certain but as painless as possible. Killing doesn't make you evil, but it certainly doesn't make you a better person, either.

[Morithias]

I object. People are products of their environments. Nature only gets you so far.

If you actually read it, I would point out that "alignment" basically determines what classes and feats you can take. You can have a deathstalker who acts Lawful Good. Or a person with the vow of peace who wants to rule the world like a tyrant.

[hamishspence]

Yes, for the most part, an evil creature has most likely done things that merit the end of his life, but that doesn't mean killing anything you find to be evil makes you a good person. You're a good person when you put forth the effort to show mercy, to change the defeated for the better, of if they are beyond salvation, at least make their death certain but as painless as possible. Killing doesn't make you evil, but it certainly doesn't make you a better person, either.

Which is pretty much what BoED emphasises- and IMO one of the best bits of it.

BoVD also allows for a certain amount of nuance- its Evil Acts list includes some things that people might think of as fairly minor compared to the more serious ones, like "cheating" or "bullying". Thus, you could have an Evil character who is only mildly evil, committing "petty" evil deeds but not major ones.

It also discusses the antihero- with Elric of Melnibone as the example "He's motivated by love and compassion, but also rage and hatred. He does good deeds, but he uses evil methods."

Fiendish Codex 2 fills out the Evil Deeds list further (and has some Lawful Deeds as well)- It takes the approach that regardless of the alignment of the character, Lawful characters with enough Evil deeds on their "record" that they haven't atoned for will send them to Baator after death (if unrepentant) or result in them becoming a Hellbred after death (if repentant).

Champions of Ruin continues to fill out the evil alignment- discussing the various reasons a character might be doing evil deeds- and saying that good and neutral characters can be driven to them from time to time- it's the repeated doing of evil deeds that marks an Evil character.

Savage Species discusses how they might compartmentalize- treating those they consider peers and loved ones with respect- but others with callousness or cruelty.

And Exemplars of Evil discusses various personality traits most likely to be associated with Evil, Lawful, and Chaotic characters.

EDIT: Also Heroes of Horror allows for a certain amount of "evil deeds + good intentions = Neutral" - in particular, casters of Evil spells, like the Dread Necromancer- though I'd say this is more for minor Evil deeds than major ones- casting an Evil spell is only a minor evil deed in FC2.