Evil Characters

[Croix]

Why do DMs ban players from making and playing Evil characters? I understand 99.9% of D&D consists of Heroes doing Heroicly Heroic deeds of Heroicness vs the BBEG... but what's so wrong with having an Evil character motivated by the simple want to be bigger and/or badder than the BBEG instead of a need to slay evil? I say, so long as the Evil character can successfully dupe the GGs or hide it outright, why care if the Evil guy generally violates other player's (and their character's) moral code?

[Morrolan]

It's because the DMs don't trust us. Often with reason.

[Croix]

It's because the DMs don't trust us. Often with reason.

I'll admit i break WBL more than anyone, but when I play that way as a Player I don't dip into the dungeon loot (normally because I play pompous noble asses and say, "Why I would I want that? It has common blood (or commoner's dirt, or something) all in it, do you know how hard that is to get out? I will not stand for it." And that generally balances it out. And sure, the random magical raping and selling things into slavery offends the sensibilities of most, but hey... they don't have to join when I ask... >.>'

lol All aside, as long as you do some kind of countermeasure to balance it all out, it should be fine.

[Pandiano]

I think because DMs mainly interpret evil as pretty cliche and overly extreme and don't want a slaughtering horde as PCs.
Many do not think about the exent to which a person can be good or evil. Kinda ironic with how much cruelty and self-justice an average "good" adventurer can get away with, while it takes real effort to prove evilness.
I would not mind evil PCs in my campaign, if they all can deal with the consequences of thwir actions, regardless of their alignment.

In the past group a Paladin had detected evil in a merchant (just the average greedy a--hole) and killed him. I did not change his alignment, but detained him for murder, self-justice and a few other things.

Let your DM develop a balanced moral compass and ensure him in a civil manner that you are not derail his story or mindlessly slaughter his NPC, you are just a bastard. There are enough possibilities to explore the evil morality.

[Croix]

I normally am overly extreme in a Neutral Evil sense. And sure, I do have my chaotic tendencies, but I deal with what I cause to befall myself. I just can't understand why they ban a fourth of the selection, but leave good open for all, even though I commonly play the Exalted character to extremes too and end up killing a great amount of NPCs to purify the world, simply because I can't play my favorite alignment, Neutral Evil. :3 Plus Lawful Good is my second favorite alignment for the simple fact I can get away with a lot cruelty so long as it's directed towards Evil...

[prufock]

D&D is a basically cooperative roleplaying game. Evil characters interfere with the cooperative aspect of it. It's possible to play an evil character that doesn't try to double-cross the party, but it's not the norm.

[Croix]

D&D is a basically cooperative roleplaying game. Evil characters interfere with the cooperative aspect of it. It's possible to play an evil character that doesn't try to double-cross the party, but it's not the norm.

True that may be, but honestly, it's boring... Sure, the few alignment classes that happen on the lawful/chaotic part happens, but it's the double-crossing and other such things that make things interesting and fun. If you can always rely on the person to your left and your right sure, it makes for some great fun times, but I've played the double crossing NE character before to some grand extremes and players have thanked me for it because it was more fun to not have the plan ALWAYS work out as planned. Besides, if your DMing, the chance that your one railroad campaign goes according to plan is if you go, "if you do that, you die" every time the players act against your 'divine' plan.

[Andreaz]

Because people can't bother to realize evil people can have common goals too. Or friends. Or reasonable goals in mind.

[Caladera]

Not all EVIL is chaotic evil.
Had an excellent campaing with a NE character who was getting along just fine with other neutral characters. He just didn't feel the need to be overly good, that's all. Sure it got quite scary of what people are capable of doing, but also one of the funniest campaings ever played (advice: never ever stumble upon slaver hobgoblings in a way of ramming a sailing boat in the middle of their slaver market port). :smallbiggrin:

[Croix]

Because people can't bother to realize evil people can have common goals too. Or friends. Or reasonable goals in mind.

This I can't deny. It seems like when I ask everytime the same answer comes out, "because you have no loyalty." Sure NE has loyalty, entirely to his/herself and I have double crossed parties because they annoyed my character and had them sold into slavery for fun and profit. But I always helped rescue them afterwards as I liked having my meatshields, er, buddies around. :3 And sure, I've killed off PCs before with a little poison here and there, but it was mostly after something that made them no longer useful to the party, like plotting against me... killing me was always a threat to the greater me, and by extension, the party. xD I've had fun times being NE, and honestly, more than a cooperative game, it's also a game to have fun in. So long as everyone has fun, it should be alright, and I make being double crossed fun. xD

[LTwerewolf]

In our group we have an evil character that's an anti-hero. He'll help people, but it may not be in the way anyone wanted.

It's kind of like this:

NPCs: "Help, bandits are harassing the town! they're in the forest!"
Character burns down the forest and traps bandits inside.
NPCs: "But that forest was the only source of food for our town!"
Him: "Oh well, the bandits are gone."

[Croix]

In our group we have an evil character that's an anti-hero. He'll help people, but it may not be in the way anyone wanted.

Evil comes in all shapes I suppose. I simply like the obvious evil approach that's just self-serving in most people's eyes. Like bargaining after a mission because I feel underpaid for the work. xD

[Andreaz]

This I can't deny. It seems like when I ask everytime the same answer comes out, "because you have no loyalty." Sure NE has loyalty, entirely to his/herself and I have double crossed parties because they annoyed my character and had them sold into slavery for fun and profit. But I always helped rescue them afterwards as I liked having my meatshields, er, buddies around. :3 And sure, I've killed off PCs before with a little poison here and there, but it was mostly after something that made them no longer useful to the party, like plotting against me... killing me was always a threat to the greater me, and by extension, the party. xD I've had fun times being NE, and honestly, more than a cooperative game, it's also a game to have fun in. So long as everyone has fun, it should be alright, and I make being double crossed fun. xD
In my most memorable game, I played an evil changeling that craved fame. She'd change faces by the minute and manipulate so that everywhere she went, she became famous for something. She was a hero most of the time, and a sensible amount of her heroism was solving problems that she started herself. Things like giving the People a crime lord's head...and taking over his job. Or teaching military tactics and organization to a couple gangs and sweeping them all at once things went out of control.

Her best friend was a paladin of war (no such a thign as alignment restrictions to pallies in this game, and the god of war is CE). His divine duty was to promote strife, which he did dutifully, with an unending spark of motivation and played smart with that.

With him came a wizard, a great golemcrafter who really didn't care for the world save for his friends and his research, and he was content to be out of the way or follow us as long as we gave him time to play with stuff.

Finally there was a bandit with us, a catburglar and backstabber little bastard accidentally responsible for setitng us to meet each other. We caught him later and decided to take him with us so that he'd pay his debt to us (both from the failed game and the protection fee we charged for keeping him as safe as safe can be with us. By the time the debt was paid he realized he really got along well in his career and tagged along.

Everyone was pretty friendly with each other, actual friends even, though mr paladin was blunt and fond of aggressive sparring, and my character kept creeping him out with shapeshifiting tricks.


Didn't stop us from all but razing an entire city because we decided the best way to clear a mansion-dungeon was to overgrow the local gelatinous cube until it got bigger than the building, and got rid of it by luring it towards a legion we knew was coming in the next months to do the same.

[LTwerewolf]

Evil comes in all shapes I suppose. I simply like the obvious evil approach that's just self-serving in most people's eyes. Like bargaining after a mission because I feel underpaid for the work. xD

It may be your version of evil that your dm doesn't like and doesn't think fits. Try something different and see if he's got a problem with it.

[supermonkeyjoe]

Because many players play evil as selfish, amoral, sociopathic and insane, generally possessing traits that no right-minded person would ever want to be in a room with, let alone adventure with. When evil is played responsibly it can work well, even chaotic evil, even in a party with good characters (see OotS's own Belkar Bitterleaf) When evil is played badly it can wreck games, or worse, friendships.

[Grimsage Matt]

I've tried playing a Troll that ate people. He was a friendly, nice fella, acted as the party Meatshield and Pack Mule. He just tended to eat NPC's:smallbiggrin:

[LTwerewolf]

Because many players play evil as selfish, amoral, sociopathic and insane, generally possessing traits that no right-minded person would ever want to be in a room with, let alone adventure with. When evil is played responsibly it can work well, even chaotic evil, even in a party with good characters (see OotS's own Belkar Bitterleaf) When evil is played badly it can wreck games, or worse, friendships.

Pretty much this. Most people just treat evil as *******s, which isn't fun from other people's perspective. You have to keep in mind that you're part of the party, there needs to be a reason why they tolerate you.

[Darius Kane]

Revi from Black Lagoon is the perfect example of CE played right (in a team of Neutrals).

[Andreaz]

Revi from Black Lagoon is the perfect example of CE played right (in a team of Neutrals).I'm sure Dutch's evil too. Kinda has to be to head the tasks he does. Revy's on a rather aggressive end of CE.

[Croix]

...sociopathic and insane...

And no Exalted character couldn't come off as such? Trust me, either extreme of the alignment are capable of it, just evil tends to be selfish and amoral about it, where an exalted character is self-righteous and justifies it all in the name of good. It truly is one way when you off Evil as an alignment.

[hamishspence]

Actually, BoED goes into some detail about the sort of things Exalted characters can't justify in the name of good- torture, mistreatment of prisoners, and so forth. BoVD helpfully points out that no nonevil character will harm or destroy souls.

Altruism is fundamental to a Good alignment- and sociopathy is by definition not compatible with an altruistic outlook.

[Croix]

Actually, BoED goes into some detail about the sort of things Exalted characters can't justify in the name of good- torture, mistreatment of prisoners, and so forth. BoVD helpfully points out that no nonevil character will harm or destroy souls.

Altruism is fundamental to a Good alignment- and sociopathy is by definition not compatible with an altruistic outlook.

You obviously haven't read up a lot of things that have been done in the name of good outside of D&D, like... the real world. {Scrubbed} NE is honestly no different than LG when you think of the things both sides do to further themselves. It truly is a matter of perspective.

[prufock]

True that may be, but honestly, it's boring... Sure, the few alignment classes that happen on the lawful/chaotic part happens, but it's the double-crossing and other such things that make things interesting and fun.
Well, if you prefer to play a sociopath, just write "TN" on your character sheet and play it how you like. No need to be a slave to the alignment system. Or you can offer to run your own evil campaign, or play Paranoia!

[Twilightwyrm]

I don't have anything wrong with DMing for evil PCs. Hell, when I was teaching my friends how to play, one of the first characters ever made was a Lawful Evil wizard. I'm still DMing for those characters, occasionally, today, and there haven't been any significant problems (and none that wouldn't be just as likely to spring up with a normal group of PCs). As a DM, you just need to be clear that actions have consequences, and the inherently risky nature that evil actions often take tend towards bad consequences.

[Croix]

Well, if you prefer to play a sociopath, just write "TN" on your character sheet and play it how you like. No need to be a slave to the alignment system. Or you can offer to run your own evil campaign, or play Paranoia!

TN is still plagued by what most would call the alignment systems, but neigh, it's evil acts themselves that DM attempt to disallow. And running my own evil campaign would strip the fun that is playing a niche role in the traditional party, and devoting myself to playing a plague of evil characters to shallow in personality due to me trying to divide my attention between so may faces. In short, if I want to play more than one person, I'd play D&D Tactics for the PSP. *shutters* And why would I play another game system? I play D&D for the pleasure of it's setting, not to be bothered by some weird off-breed child of the idea.

[Croix]

I don't have anything wrong with DMing for evil PCs. Hell, when I was teaching my friends how to play, one of the first characters ever made was a Lawful Evil wizard. I'm still DMing for those characters, occasionally, today, and there haven't been any significant problems (and none that wouldn't be just as likely to spring up with a normal group of PCs). As a DM, you just need to be clear that actions have consequences, and the inherently risky nature that evil actions often take tend towards bad consequences.

Exactly my point. It makes no sense to ban an alignment for the concept of it, rather just limit it if it starts causing problems with everyone's fun. Sure, selling the plans and secrets of your fellow adventurers is annoying to others, but it makes it more fun as they can be more prepared to fight the party and offer a better challenge. I've been in all good parties as a good character and encounters eventually became a lot of the same old tactic used in repetition.

[Eldonauran]

{Scrub the post, scrub the quote} Look 'em up to see the absolute insane things they did. >.> NE is honestly no different than LG when you think of the things both sides do to further themselves. It truly is a matter of perspective.

The world outside of D&D has no basis in D&D alignment. And real-world religion is not a topic that should really be broached on this forum.

Good and Evil are actual forces in the D&D universe, as are Chaos and Law (Order). Attempts to mesh them with real world 'ideas' of alignment are doomed to failure. If that is what you are basing your definition of good and evil via 'perspective' then that is a house-ruled alignment system. Nothing wrong with it.

[Kelb_Panthera]

The world outside of D&D has no basis in D&D alignment. And real-world religion is not a topic that should really be broached on this forum.

Good and Evil are actual forces in the D&D universe, as are Chaos and Law (Order). Attempts to mesh them with real world 'ideas' of alignment are doomed to failure.

Ditto this^.

While the good V evil axis of the alignment system may be called the moral axis, alignment is not morality.

If you do the things that the cosmic force called evil resonates with, it doesn't matter how you see yourself and it doesn't matter how society sees you, a holy word spell is going to hurt.

Also noteworthy, the cosmic forces of alignment don't hold you responsible for the long-term consequences of your actions, unless those consequences were patently obvious and eminently predictable.

[Croix]

The world outside of D&D has no basis in D&D alignment. And real-world religion is not a topic that should really be broached on this forum.

Good and Evil are actual forces in the D&D universe, as are Chaos and Law (Order). Attempts to mesh them with real world 'ideas' of alignment are doomed to failure.

You say doomed to failure, but it proves the point that good and evil are at it's basest form, regardless of text in a book, are different ways of thinking and approaching any giving situation. What you might call Exalted, others might call Vile. And what some may think of as Vile in turn can be an Exalted. You only limit how Vile or Exalted a person can be by limiting a person's choice in Alignment.

Example: A lord can be evil beyond all reproach, go on Paladin, kill him. But know that without him though the entire town, though oppressed, would fall into Anarchy and disorder, possibly a city of rapist, bandits, and thieves. You'd be the town hero for destroying the evil that plagued them for a time, but now things far worse will happen to them, so a net gain for Evil. Meanwhile, an Evil character could be out doing for themselves to further their plans, and kill said Paladin. Yes, sure, murdering a holy man is evil, but he in the end saved the town from becoming worse than what it already was. Net gain for good. Evil characters may be depraved, but every single action I've ever seen any hero perform only worsened a situation comparable to how 'good' the deed was simply because their alignment restricted them from doing the most effective thing for the town which was to simply ignore the Lord or even manipulate them.

[Croix]

Ditto this^.

While the good V evil axis of the alignment system may be called the moral axis, alignment is not morality.

If you do the things that the cosmic force called evil resonates with, it doesn't matter how you see yourself and it doesn't matter how society sees you, a holy word spell is going to hurt.

Also noteworthy, the cosmic forces of alignment don't hold you responsible for the long-term consequences of your actions, unless those consequences were patently obvious and eminently predictable.

As would anything that negatively affect anyone of any alignment. Point to or against the reasoning why most DMs ban being evil aligned in a game being? My point of morality is simply that Evil can be twisted to Good, not that Good = Evil. Just simply making a point that Good characters can still do overall Evil things, so why outright ban the other half?

[Kelb_Panthera]

You say doomed to failure, but it proves the point that good and evil are at it's basest form, regardless of text in a book, are different ways of thinking and approaching any giving situation. What you might call Exalted, others might call Vile. And what some may think of as Vile in turn can be an Exalted. You only limit how Vile or Exalted a person can be by limiting a person's choice in Alignment.

Example: A lord can be evil beyond all reproach, go on Paladin, kill him. But know that without him though the entire town, though oppressed, would fall into Anarchy and disorder, possibly a city of rapist, bandits, and thieves. You'd be the town hero for destroying the evil that plagued them for a time, but now things far worse will happen to them, so a net gain for Evil. Meanwhile, an Evil character could be out doing for themselves to further their plans, and kill said Paladin. Yes, sure, murdering a holy man is evil, but he in the end saved the town from becoming worse than what it already was. Net gain for good. Evil characters may be depraved, but every single action I've ever seen any hero perform only worsened a situation comparable to how 'good' the deed was simply because their alignment restricted them from doing the most effective thing for the town which was to simply ignore the Lord or even manipulate them.

A character's alignment doesn't force him to act in any way.

Quite the opposite in fact, you alignment is determined by your actions.

That paladin very much could've left the evil lord alive, even should have if the consequences of killing him were readily apparent.

Further, by killing the evil lord, the paladin has assumed some degree of responsibility for handling the innescapable fallout of such an act. Bandits start moveing in because the lords forces are disorganized, the paladin organizes those forces or helps instruct the people in forming a militia.

Though as I said previously, the force of good only recognizes the paladin as responsible for the fallout if it was an obvious consequence to his action. If nobody knew the bandits were there or that there were so very many of them, evil gets its net-gain until the paladin and/or his allies and friends come back and wipe out the bandits.

The problem you're hitting is the all too common problem of conflating the rules construct that is the alignment system with the social construct that is RL morality. There's -some- overlap, but they're fundamentally different things.

[Da'Shain]

Example: A lord can be evil beyond all reproach, go on Paladin, kill him. But know that without him though the entire town, though oppressed, would fall into Anarchy and disorder, possibly a city of rapist, bandits, and thieves. You'd be the town hero for destroying the evil that plagued them for a time, but now things far worse will happen to them, so a net gain for Evil. Meanwhile, an Evil character could be out doing for themselves to further their plans, and kill said Paladin. Yes, sure, murdering a holy man is evil, but he in the end saved the town from becoming worse than what it already was. Net gain for good. Evil characters may be depraved, but every single action I've ever seen any hero perform only worsened a situation comparable to how 'good' the deed was simply because their alignment restricted them from doing the most effective thing for the town which was to simply ignore the Lord or even manipulate them.This is assuming that evil wins in the ensuing power vacuum, something that is not a given even if we take for granted that the Paladin in question does not aid the town in reinstating a lawful government. It's a situation that is possible, but by no means given or even probable.


I find evil characters are done best when they're agreed upon before a campaign. I've done all good guys, all good guys with some alignment shifts, party of neutral mercs, and party of loathsome evil creatures, and all can be really really fun ... but without agreeing on it, you run the risk of annoying a player who really just wanted to play a straight adventure with some friends. It's currently happening in a campaign I'm in, and it's doubly annoying: first, because there was never any mention of inter-party dynamics being important, and second, because the player straight up told us he was going to screw us OOC, but we can't act on it yet IC at all because our characters don't know. It's frustrating having it sprung on you and then not even being able to do anything about it.

[Kelb_Panthera]

As would anything that negatively affect anyone of any alignment. Point to or against the reasoning why most DMs ban being evil aligned in a game being? My point of morality is simply that Evil can be twisted to Good, not that Good = Evil. Just simply making a point that Good characters can still do overall Evil things, so why outright ban the other half?

A character or characters of a given alignment being negatively affected isn't necessarily a positive for the opposite alignment. Example: some minor duke of hell dethrones Asmodeus in the biggest upset since the beginning of time. One of -the- major players for Evil has been brought down. That's a good thing, right? Wrong, the new guy spends so much time and effort trying to cement his position by reorganizing the political structure of baator that the blood-war gets neglected and the demon hordes start to overrun the lower planes. This cascades into huge forays of celestial forces into the pit to try and restore the balance. Angels and archons die by the millions, and the tide is barely stemmed before acheron is overrun. With so much access to all of the lower realms, the number of demons making it to the material takes a dramatic upswing. The death of a creature of unparalleled evil has actually made the world a darker place. Ironically, the alignment system, by RAW, would recognize the duke slaying Asmodeus as a Good act, since slaying fiends is always a good act and the far-reaching and tragic consequences were well outside anyone's expectations.

For bonus points, though the previous example was also an extremely chaotic act (slaying a Lawful outsider) the mortals of the world start banding together and organizing themselves more than ever before to combat this new and perilous increase in chaotic creatures on the material; a net gain for law.

This post and the one I made previously, have little to do with why GM's disallow evil in their games. They were more an attempt to clarify some (unfortunately common) misconceptions about the alignment system. GM's don't allow evil PC's because they can't imagine it working in a way that doesn't drag the game down for everyone and/or they suspect that any player that wants to be evil really just wants to be a jackass that can go "I was just playing my alignment," which is never a valid argument, BTW.

[Eldonauran]

How you (the character) perceive yourself in D&D doesn't mean a thing. Because Good and Evil, Law and Chaos are active forces in the universe, your actions will determine how you 'ping' on the detect alignment radar. You can 'perceive' yourself to be Good while you torture someone for the information you want but you (the character) are simply deluded or willfully ignorant. You will still be evil for all intents and purposes of the alignment system.

Holy Word will hurt you, you are evil.
Protection from Evil will work against you, you are evil.

[FatherMalkav]

I normally am overly extreme in a Neutral Evil sense. And sure, I do have my chaotic tendencies, but I deal with what I cause to befall myself.


I commonly play the Exalted character to extremes too and end up killing a great amount of NPCs to purify the world, simply because I can't play my favorite alignment, Neutral Evil.


Lawful Good is my second favorite alignment for the simple fact I can get away with a lot cruelty so long as it's directed towards Evil...


it's the double-crossing and other such things that make things interesting and fun.


I have double crossed parties because they annoyed my character and had them sold into slavery for fun and profit.


And sure, I've killed off PCs before with a little poison here and there, but it was mostly after something that made them no longer useful to the party, like plotting against me...

I think I found out why your DM is opposed to you playing Evil.

[Kelb_Panthera]

How you (the character) perceive yourself in D&D doesn't mean a thing. Because Good and Evil, Law and Chaos are active forces in the universe, your actions will determine how you 'ping' on the detect alignment radar. You can 'perceive' yourself to be Good while you torture someone for the information you want but you (the character) are simply deluded or willfully ignorant. You will still be evil for all intents and purposes of the alignment system.

Holy Word will hurt you, you are evil.
Protection from Evil will work against you, you are evil.

This is only partly true.

How you percieve yourself does have some small influence on your alignment, since the motivations to your actions do matter. There are, however, a number of actions that are intrinsically aligned, though most acts are neutral, absent a proper motivation.

Also of note: it's extremely rare for a single act to be so powerfully aligned as to cause an immediate alignment shift in and of itself. A good character -can- commit an act of torture to claim vital information without immediately becoming evil, because that's a single evil act weighed against the overall behavioral pattern of good deeds.

It's only when a pattern of aligned actions becomes apparent that a character's alignment shifts toward the alignment of those actions. A character that regularly tortures prisoners for information is probably evil, even if he convinces himself it's for the greater good.

[Eldonauran]

This is only partly true.

Aye, I should have injected 'regularly' in there somewhere. A Good character wouldn't torture someone unless absolutely necessary and an Exalted would never. Exalted are made of similar stuff that Paladins are (not the 'alternate paladins'). One evil act causes them to lose their Exalted status.

[Goblin Muncher]

Hey guys new poster and new to d&d aswell. I agree that an evil character done well add an interesting dynamic to the party. My friend has told me that he is playing a campaign where one of his party member's is playing a NE sorcerer in a party filled with mostly good alignments and he had told me it was hella fun Often times the sorc would lie to the party about his evil deeds or use his magic to influence one of the of the party member's. I would like to try to play an evil character aswell the problem is how would I convince a gm to let me play an evil character. I was thinking that I can make him evil with redeeming qualities or that he means good but his actions are cruel? I was thinking that maybe he was a slave and he tortures and kills other slavers? I often thought the bad guys were always cooler than the heros but it seems its hard to rp them (atleast for me) effectively b/c your "playing out of your alignment" when you team up with a group of good people. Just my thoughts

[kardar233]

For a lot of DMs it seems to be a leftover from their early campaigns, when they felt the need to railroad heavily. Often with new players so-called "Good" characters will commit pretty awful actions on a regular basis but are never disabused of their alignment. Early DMs (I've done this myself) will drop a plot hook (help the villagers with their bandit problem even though they can't pay), the "Good" characters will say "hell no!" and the DM will say "Your character is Good, they wouldn't just walk away like that" and the player will acquiesce. Having Evil characters meant it was much more difficult to keep them on the rails.

However, some DMs can be brought around. I once played a 3.PF game set in the Pathfinder setting (Golarion) in which I convinced the DM to allow me to play a LE Paladin of Asmodeus. In Golarion, Asmodeus is the embodiment of absolute law, and the evilness is secondary. He worked with the party to overthrow the devil-worshipping kingdom of Cheliax because he felt they had strayed from the True Law as set down by Asmodeus. Personality-wise, he was a pretty nice (though snarky) guy until there was some lawbreaking going on, at which point he essentially became Judge Dredd. At an earlier point he had made an oath to never lie, which might have been problematic (as his social skills were way higher than the rest of the party) but as he didn't believe in the spirit of the law, he got people to believe things he hadn't actually said were true through Exact Words. The DM liked the character enough to lift his ban on Evil characters on a case-by-case basis.

[Darth Stabber]

If I am running a sandbox style game (as in most of the time), evil parties are easier. They don't need wrongs to go out and right, they go out and set up wrongs. Traditional structure has the players reacting to the GM, where as sandbox is the opposite, I react to them. They'll take over a town, I run the town guard opposing them. They rob a trade caravan, the caravan company sends mercenaries after them. Plus all the good monsters are really easy to use. Do you know how good for it's CR an astral deva is? And it's lot like the evil monsters are any harder.

Plus playing evil is better, do you know how many awesome things require you to be a horrible person? A lot, and they tend to be better than the things that require you to give a crap about other people. Would you rather have the lg only paladin, or the non-good dread necromancer? One will give you order and demand you not "sacrifice toddlers to dark entities best left unnamed" the other will be the one handing you the sacrificial dagger while his imp familiar cackles maniacally. You can go through a lot of time, effort, money, and xp to build constructs, but undead are dirt cheap. Who cares about the so called "natural balance of life and death", cheap meat based robotics FTW!

[Jon_Dahl]

In my case it's purely to avoid evil-doings against party members. With evil characters, you will have plenty of chances of just betraying everybody and taking the loot with you.

If I knew for a fact that the evil characters would never betray other PCs, I'd allow them.

[Darth Stabber]

In my case it's purely to avoid evil-doings against party members. With evil characters, you will have plenty of chances of just betraying everybody and taking the loot with you.

If I knew for a fact that the evil characters would never betray other PCs, I'd allow them.

Make it a rule. Social contracts are fluid things like that.

[Kaustic]

When/If I play Evil characters with a party of Good/Neutral characters I tend to have several concepts in mind. My favorite is the Evil character that uses it to Good ends. A Necromancer makes a great concept for this. Summons undead to use against the other undead or BBEG. Another idea is that the character doesn't exactly know what "Evil" is, but he goes about ways that are non-traditional to get something for the party. Plus it's exciting roleplay once the "Holier-than-you" character does that Detect Evil, and then starts staring blankly at you.

[LTwerewolf]

When/If I play Evil characters with a party of Good/Neutral characters I tend to have several concepts in mind. My favorite is the Evil character that uses it to Good ends. A Necromancer makes a great concept for this. Summons undead to use against the other undead or BBEG. Another idea is that the character doesn't exactly know what "Evil" is, but he goes about ways that are non-traditional to get something for the party. Plus it's exciting roleplay once the "Holier-than-you" character does that Detect Evil, and then starts staring blankly at you.

That's known as the anti-hero.

[Andreaz]

Make it a rule. Social contracts are fluid things like that.Pretty much. As stated before, it's not like it's hard to come up with reasons for them to not want to stab each other to death. The easiest and simplest of them start at "They're not morons"

[Togo]

The closest I get to playing evil characters are characters that are well-intentioned, but stupid. Wizards who summon demons to carry out good tasks, community-minded necromancers, assassins who want to try and improve the world by assassinating political figures who don't live up to exacting standards, and so on.

I don't normally allow players to play evil, becuase if only one does it, it's very disruptive to the group. The reasons for a party sticking together are often thin, since they're based around the understanding that the player characters need to stick together for the game to function. Anything that hammers that weak spot is generally a bad idea.

An entirely evil party is little better. Ideas about what do and don't constitute evil behaviour are extremely variable, and I find that evil groups often fall apart simply because it's so very hard to play evil while taking enough care not to offend eachother that the group not only stays together but actively wants to cooperate.

[Talderas]

That's known as the anti-hero.

Most evil behavior (ignoring the outer planes) is usually a matter of antisocial behavior along with some sociopathic behavior. Serial evil behavior, I found, is a good way to play evil without necessarily running the risk of party betrayal unless the party starts behaving in ways that would fall in line with the serial behavior. On the other hand, this isn't particularly different from having exalted characters or paladins in your party.

One of my character concepts for a necromancer was to have his slaymate be his daughter that his wife neglected while he was out studying the arcane arts. So he's bent on protecting children from their parents and this exhibits itself as him killing parents, raising them as undead, and making sure the now orphaned children don't have to worry about neglect, usually by killing them so they can become slaymates.

That character shouldn't, in theory, run into conflict with a party unless they literally screw around and start having kids.

[Fibinachi]

Most Dm's (Me included) don't allow evil characters because, at creation, the "evil" bit that the player tells the Dm (or me) that they intend to do is not so much "evil" as it is "asshatted sociopathy and being allowed to do whatever I want without without having to think of the implications for my conscience". I don't mean this to be mean (sarcastically evil), but the list earlier that FatherMalkav posted?


Originally Posted by Croix
I normally am overly extreme in a Neutral Evil sense. And sure, I do have my chaotic tendencies, but I deal with what I cause to befall myself.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Croix
I commonly play the Exalted character to extremes too and end up killing a great amount of NPCs to purify the world, simply because I can't play my favorite alignment, Neutral Evil.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Croix
Lawful Good is my second favorite alignment for the simple fact I can get away with a lot cruelty so long as it's directed towards Evil...
Quote:
Originally Posted by Croix
it's the double-crossing and other such things that make things interesting and fun.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Croix
I have double crossed parties because they annoyed my character and had them sold into slavery for fun and profit.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Croix
And sure, I've killed off PCs before with a little poison here and there, but it was mostly after something that made them no longer useful to the party, like plotting against me...

Doesn't so much scream "evil" to me as it does "betrayer who cannot be trusted and will turn on the party at any given moment, for the slightest reason, because the player is bored or because the character thinks stabbing someone through the throat and urinating on their corpse is a reasonable reaction to the statement "Good day noble master!" ".

If you have fun with that, that's awesome and you should keep doing it and I hope games work out great for you. As a DM, that would however have me inventing poorly contrived reason to infect you with Rapid Onset Deathpox, because the antics of the character contrive to create an environment where nothing can be accomplished and everyone is hostage to the mood swings of said character - because, at any given moment, he might turn on them and stab them but bashing someone's skull in out of hand, on a hunch, is not really Good in any sense.

I've played with evil Pc's - that is, player characters who had an evil alignment written on their sheet and accomplished a great amount of deeds focused very, very pointedly on getting themselves higher up on the scale of things. One of them used a combination of drugs, violence and spells to turn a party member into a walking automaton. Demons cherished his doings! CE clerics called him up to get some inspiration on torture methods! So on, so on.

But it was all talked out OOC'ly before, the player in question made a new character (Since automatons aren't really known for their initiative and free will) and everyone continued all the merrier. And I felt bad for days because of the things I had to narrate.

The problem boils down to "Allowing players to do things that are evil can be fun, rewarding and a good old fashioned betrayal adds so muchto an otherwise stale party dynamic but my god, if you keep slaughtering those orphans, staking them out on the front line of the church and raping milk maids, I am seriously going to reconsider a few things about your cliched hetereonormative powerbender"

The phrase the banality of evil might hold true for reality, but in D&D it just gets annoying and if you want to play evil characters you need to come up with a great reason as to why your character isn't just "Cynical Chaotic Neutral", because most evil acts that I've seen players want to do isn't so much "evil" as it is, well, basic narcissism.

So I guess that's why some DM's don't allow it and some people worry about it. Because there's a fair chance it'll boil down into "Stabbity McRandomArson's field trip to the Soon-To-Be-Razed-Village!" and not, say, racist noble shallow Fool McPompous saves the foolish commoners and then gets more money off of them, ha ha, before making lewd comments at the serving staff.

[Venger]

In our group we have an evil character that's an anti-hero. He'll help people, but it may not be in the way anyone wanted.

It's kind of like this:

NPCs: "Help, bandits are harassing the town! they're in the forest!"
Character burns down the forest and traps bandits inside.
NPCs: "But that forest was the only source of food for our town!"
Him: "Oh well, the bandits are gone."

PC was alfred pennyworth the whole time.

[Darth Stabber]

It sounds like several people in this thread have experience play with people who can't tell the difference between moron and evil.

Here's how I start out explaining how a campaign is going to run. "The pcs can argue, but no physical or metaphysical altercations, if your excuse is 'that's what my character would do', it's not a good excuse. You created your charater's personality, if it isn't one that can play nice, you are wrong". I rarely 'rocks fall', but I will come up with amusing manners in which to off errant characters, and I will then eat their character sheet, literally (unless it's gross, they I have a shredder for that). I'm working on an emp to get rid of digital copies, but that won't handle off site or cloud storage.

[Talderas]

Most Dm's (Me included) don't allow evil characters because, at creation, the "evil" bit that the player tells the Dm (or me) that they intend to do is not so much "evil" as it is "asshatted sociopathy and being allowed to do whatever I want without without having to think of the implications for my conscience". I don't mean this to be mean (sarcastically evil), but the list earlier that FatherMalkav posted?

D&D utilizes an absolute alignment system and not a relative one. BoED and BoVD somewhat explain this but they don't do a great job at doing so. An evil act is an evil act and someone who commits evil acts is evil regardless of motivation. An exalted character who commits an evil act is no longer exalted. A paladin who knowingly commits an evil act falls. Sociopathy, since it typically is an extreme manifestation of anti-social behavior, will often find the sociopath committing evil acts.

Take a sociopathic serial murderer who rapes and consumes the bodies of women. We may be abhorred by it but most certainly he will be diagnosed with some disorder and it would be declared that he just can't help himself so we will try some drugs to cure him or alter his mind. In the world of D&D the same sociopath is abjectly evil. Even if sanitariums exist he would still be evil. He's evil because of the everlasting conflict between the upper and lower planes and the competition between them for the souls of people from the material plane he will be considered evil.

The people that play characters that just plot and ploy to aid themselves are playing evil light. The only real evil are those that forward the causes of the lower planes through their actions. :grin:

[hamishspence]

An evil act is an evil act
True.


and someone who commits evil acts is evil regardless of motivation.
Less true. There's plenty of room for characters whose mixture of Evil and Good behaviour- (many Good deeds, few Evil deeds, always for Good reasons) results in them being Neutral.


An exalted character who commits an evil act is no longer exalted. A paladin who knowingly commits an evil act falls.
Depending on the edition, a paladin who unknowingly commits an Evil act might be expected to fall as well.


Sociopathy, since it typically is an extreme manifestation of anti-social behavior, will often find the sociopath committing evil acts.

Take a sociopathic serial murderer who rapes and consumes the bodies of women. We may be abhorred by it but most certainly he will be diagnosed with some disorder and it would be declared that he just can't help himself so we will try some drugs to cure him or alter his mind. In the world of D&D the same sociopath is abjectly evil. Even if sanitariums exist he would still be evil.
Sounds about right going by Champions of Ruin- a character can be insane and yet still Evil.


The people that play characters that just plot and ploy to aid themselves are playing evil light. The only real evil are those that forward the causes of the lower planes through their actions. :grin:
When "plotting and ploying to aid themselves" consistantly involves evil acts- even minor ones- and the character shows little in the way of Good acts- a case can be made that they're Evil. Depending on the interpretation, as much as 1/3 the human population of a D&D world might be expected to be Evil. Most might be this "mild evil"- a few might be worse.

[Talderas]

Less true. There's plenty of room for characters whose mixture of Evil and Good behaviour- (many Good deeds, few Evil deeds, always for Good reasons) results in them being Neutral.

Right, but that's the evil being tempered by good resulting with neutral. The absence of good acts to counteract the evil would lead to a much greater evil. You know, kind of like when Roy dies in the comic and they show him the graph of Belkar's evil acts with and without Roy...



Depending on the edition, a paladin who unknowingly commits an Evil act might be expected to fall as well.

Negligent behavior causes a paladin to fall if an evil result occurs but negligent behavior requires that that paladin be made sufficiently aware of the potential results. I believe BoED uses a rock slide caused by a paladin trying to climb something as an example of this.


When "plotting and ploying to aid themselves" consistantly involves evil acts- even minor ones- and the character shows little in the way of Good acts- a case can be made that they're Evil. Depending on the interpretation, as much as 1/3 the human population of a D&D world might be expected to be Evil. Most might be this "mild evil"- a few might be worse.

I was calling it evil light as a joke more than anything. As far as the good vs evil conflict matters, evil light vs evil doesn't matter just that they are committing evil. It's just that evil light is droll to me.

[hamishspence]

Negligent behavior causes a paladin to fall if an evil result occurs but negligent behavior requires that that paladin be made sufficiently aware of the potential results. I believe BoED uses a rock slide caused by a paladin trying to climb something as an example of this.


BoVD does, yes.

The Atonement spell description suggests that there's such a thing as "committing an evil act under magical compulsion" or "unwittingly committing an evil act"- and both might be things a character needs to atone for in order to get their powers back.

In 3.0e- the spell description explicitly stated that only evil acts of those two types, could be atoned for by a paladin sufficiently to get their powers back- if they willingly committed evil act- they didn't just Fall, but Fell Permanently.

3.5 removed that bit- but it's not so clear that it removed the possibility of Falling for unwilling or unwitting evil. The text in the paladin class description was exactly the same about saying that "willingly committing evil act causes paladin to Fall"- so it was only by looking up the atonement spell that one finds out that you can fall for unwilling or unwitting acts.

[Talderas]

BoVD does, yes.

The Atonement spell description suggests that there's such a thing as "committing an evil act under magical compulsion" or "unwittingly committing an evil act"- and both might be things a character needs to atone for in order to get their powers back.

In 3.0e- the spell description explicitly stated that only evil acts of those two types, could be atoned for by a paladin sufficiently to get their powers back- if they willingly committed evil act- they didn't just Fall, but Fell Permanently.

3.5 removed that bit- but it's not so clear that it removed the possibility of Falling for unwilling or unwitting evil. The text in the paladin class description was exactly the same about saying that "willingly committing evil act causes paladin to Fall"- so it was only by looking up the atonement spell that one finds out that you can fall for unwilling or unwitting acts.

I believe if we go back to the rock slide, a paladin later finding out what happened because of his actions could fall and need an atonement due to his guilt. That would fall under the unwittingly.

[Darth Stabber]

3.5 removed that bit- but it's not so clear that it removed the possibility of Falling for unwilling or unwitting evil. The text in the paladin class description was exactly the same about saying that "willingly committing evil act causes paladin to Fall"- so it was only by looking up the atonement spell that one finds out that you can fall for unwilling or unwitting acts.

I wouldn't necessarily make that claim, as it is likely just a copy and paste job (like much of 3.5), and the spell people didn't get the memo from class people, or didn't care.

[hamishspence]

Given that 3.0 had "paladins fall if they willingly commit an evil act" and 3.0 Atonement had

"if a paladin fell due to unwillingly or unwittingly committing an evil act, this spell can restore their class abilities"

then it makes sense that a paladin can Fall for "unwillingly or unwittingly committing an evil act"

Thus, the fact that the class description for 3.5 cuts and pastes heavily from 3.0 doesn't mean much- "willing evil acts" aren't the only evil acts that can cause paladin to fall.

[BowStreetRunner]

Every DM has the right to ban anything with which they don't feel comfortable. If that is evil characters, so be it. I'm not going to deny them that right just because I want to play an evil character. On the other hand, I think there is nothing wrong with evil characters in the party per se. Problem characters can be good, neutral or evil. A good player can make a character of any alignment shine.

In my own games, I do not ban evil characters. I do ban villains. The way I explain it is that the games that I run are designed so that I control the villains and the players control the heroes. Whether they are willing heroes or reluctant heroes, that's the role that has been thrust upon them. If a character falls far enough to become a villain, that character is no longer the domain of the player. I do not tolerate any competition in the role of villain. :smallwink: If you want to play the villain, then start your own game. :smalltongue:

[hamishspence]

In my own games, I do not ban evil characters. I do ban villains. The way I explain it is that the games that I run are designed so that I control the villains and the players control the heroes. Whether they are willing heroes or reluctant heroes, that's the role that has been thrust upon them.

Seems reasonable. The "evil-aligned Hero" isn't exactly unfeasible- if you apply alignment rather harshly, with it being fairly easy to be evil.

D&D as "a game of Heroes" is a pretty reasonable interpretation of the default state of the game.

[elonin]

I have had a problem for awhile with the dnd concept of good and evil. If you play your game in comic book mode your play may resemble the depiction in the dnd movies (and from art etc). Many groups I have played with don't bother with alignment at all and prefer character descriptions to the point that alignments become pointless for pcs.

I have also seen groups in which alignment was also useless as players would mark their sheets with some version of good or neutral then commit atrocities cause they decided to raid a dungeon.

[Kelb_Panthera]

I have had a problem for awhile with the dnd concept of good and evil. If you play your game in comic book mode your play may resemble the depiction in the dnd movies (and from art etc). Many groups I have played with don't bother with alignment at all and prefer character descriptions to the point that alignments become pointless for pcs.

I have also seen groups in which alignment was also useless as players would mark their sheets with some version of good or neutral then commit atrocities cause they decided to raid a dungeon.

D&D's alignment system is only a tool. If you don't like it you don't have to use it.

However, it's not fair to blame the tool if it's misused. It's not the hammer's fault if you decide to club somebody over the head with it instead of driving nails.

The biggest problem that seems to crop-up around the alignment system is that a hammer is a terrible comparison. It's more like one of those "it can do everything" power tools that comes with 13 bazillion parts and pieces or an automobile assembly line robot. If you just try to pick-up and play without actually sitting down and learning the system somebody's going to get hurt. The alignment system is a rules construct meant to give meaning to the otherwise fairly arbitrary words "good" and "evil." If you expect it to always line up perfectly with your own views on morallity you'll almost certainly be disappointed.

Fortunately the main 3.5 system does, in fact, work nearly exactly as it was intended* if you scrap alignment altogether or assign your own values to the alignment keywords. It's only when you get into a game where alignment takes a major role that a consistent rules construct is necessary, and the RAW provides that, even if it's not a perfect fit for everyone.

*I realize how contentious the idea that the system works as intended is but I was making a point. It does function nearly the same with or without alignment.

[Darth Stabber]

As it is often said "alignment is descriptive, not perscriptive". Paladins are kind of an exception, lg straight jacket and all.

[AttilaTheGeek]

I play a Chaotic Evil Eldritch Knight character in a party with a Monk and a Paladin, and it's working out great. The biggest reason it works is because if someone annoys me, I'll kill them and enjoy it, but I know that my actions have consequences and that I couldn't take both of them in a straight fight. IC, I'm looking to become a Lich, so I know that I have to look out for Future Me. That includes not massacring innocents (as entertaining as it would be), and occasionally being Good or Lawful when it benefits me in the long term.

Really, I could be Neutral Evil, or even True Neutral, but I had a talk with my GM and we came to the conclusion that I really was Chaotic Evil because my attitude towards life is "Look out for number one, ignoring laws or other people's safety", even though I'm not "LOL KILLING IS FUN".

[PeglegJim]

Because they're stupid. And also, alignment is stupid.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Because they're stupid. And also, alignment is stupid.

How productive.

Care to elaborate?

[Darius Kane]

Because they're stupid. And also, alignment is stupid.
http://cdn.derpiboo.ru/media/BAhbBlsHOgZmSSIsMjAxMi8xMC8yOC8xOV81MF8yOV80MzdfMT M0OTU3X19VTk9QVF9fBjoGRVQ/134957__safe_twilight-sparkle_fluttershy_reaction-image_macro.png

[ThiagoMartell]

When someone says "I want to play an evil character!" I say no. Any character whose defining characteristic is being evil sounds like an excuse for fulfilling someone else's dark fantasies and I don't want to be a part of that.
When someone comes up to me with a concept and personality and that seems to be evil, I allow it, sure.

Not wanting evil characters in your game is not bad, it's not wrong and it doesn't make you a bad DM. It just means you don't want evil characters in your game.

[Phelix-Mu]

I fully believe that for most characters, alignment is more of a matter of describing the actions they generally take more than their substance as a person. See the difference between evil alignment and evil subtype.

The exception here, importantly, are characters that either have to commit themselves to an alignment (pally mostly), or do so for role play reasons. If my character is fully committed to being good, I'm going to have trouble being around a person that is routinely evil in behavior, even if they behave themselves in my presence. After all, adventuring makes you stronger, and the psycho-in-training sleeping in the bedroll next to me will probably grow up to do things that I find abhorrent. True, I can believe in personal freedom and maybe this guy will change, but still, a bit of a risk to take. Especially if I am materially aiding this person on a regular basis (e.g. saving his behind in combat).

In short, being evil can tolerate some good, but being good has poor tolerance for evil. Thus the negative effect on party dynamic expected by most DMs.

It doesn't have to happen like that, though, as many examples have shown, and I would further add that, if a DM has a problem with evil people doing evil things and how that affects the campaign, THEN HE SHOULD ALSO HAVE A PROBLEM WITH C/L NEUTRAL PEOPLE DOING EVIL THINGS.

Case in point, a neutral druid I am playing is responsible for maintaining the Balance (capital B). She accepts that any method is acceptable as long as the outcome is favorable toward maintaining said Balance. Has a town of humans spawned a cult that believes that trees are evil and need to be cut down? Well, ideally she would track down each cult member, offer some kind of ultimatum (forsake these stupid ways blah blah), or they die. In reality, she's busy (her territory includes a whole continent) and setting an example has its merits. So she decides to drop a glacier or w/e on the town. Sure, it looks like mass murder under the microscope, but in the big picture a doomsday-type cult hellbent on exterminating all plant life is a big concern. She'll just have to balance it out by saving some orphans, rendering assistance to friendly NG churches (Ehlonna and their ilk), saying the rosary a lot, or whatever the DM will accept as good deeds to "balance" out the evil.

[Dr.Epic]

Let's look at these two situations and compare the two:

Good campaign:
NPC: Noble heroes, I need you help. An evil cult seeks to revive an ancient, power dark deity that will destroy the world. I will pay you 10,000 gold pieces to do this and the gods will be forever grateful to you.

PCs: An evil cult! Quick heroes! We haven't a moment to spare! Show us the way good sir.

Evil campaign:
NPC: Greetings. I come to you seeking aid. My cult seeks to revive an ancient dark god and bring forth thousand of years of darkness. Help me, and I'll gladly pay you 10,000 gold pieces as well as a seat of power along side our dark god.

PCs: This guy has 10,000 gold pieces on him!? I kill him and take the gold.

DM: What? No you can't do that.

PCs: Why not? I'm evil. *rolls dice* SWEET! Natural twenty! He's so dead!

DM: You just ruined that quest! Do you know how long it took me to plan that!?

PCs: Yeah, that's great. Let's burn down the orphanage.

What did we learn?

[ThiagoMartell]

Let's look at these two situations and compare the two:

Good campaign:
NPC: Noble heroes, I need you help. An evil cult seeks to revive an ancient, power dark deity that will destroy the world. I will pay you 10,000 gold pieces to do this and the gods will be forever grateful to you.

PCs: An evil cult! Quick heroes! We haven't a moment to spare! Show us the way good sir.

Evil campaign:
NPC: Greetings. I come to you seeking aid. My cult seeks to revive an ancient dark god and bring forth thousand of years of darkness. Help me, and I'll gladly pay you 10,000 gold pieces as well as a seat of power along side our dark god.

PCs: This guy has 10,000 gold pieces on him!? I kill him and take the gold.

DM: What? No you can't do that.

PCs: Why not? I'm evil. *rolls dice* SWEET! Natural twenty! He's so dead!

DM: You just ruined that quest! Do you know how long it took me to plan that!?

PCs: Yeah, that's great. Let's burn down the orphanage.

What did we learn?

That railroading is terrible.:smallamused:

[Kelb_Panthera]

When someone says "I want to play an evil character!" I say no. Any character whose defining characteristic is being evil sounds like an excuse for fulfilling someone else's dark fantasies and I don't want to be a part of that.
When someone comes up to me with a concept and personality and that seems to be evil, I allow it, sure.

Not wanting evil characters in your game is not bad, it's not wrong and it doesn't make you a bad DM. It just means you don't want evil characters in your game.

I agree, but I can't help but point a detail out. You said you deny evil characters because of the assumption that the player is making the character evil because they want to indulge in some dark fantasies. That is fine.

The problem that the OP is aiming at, I think, is that some DM's declare that they don't allow evil characters in an apparently arbitrary manner.

When it's a case of a DM being "once bitten; twice shy" and denying the possibility of players playing evil characters because of some previous jerk-off really was using his alignment as an excuse to be a d-bag, in-character, there's a problem. That's a case of punishing everyone for someone else's mistakes.

Out of curiosity, Thiago, how would you feel if, for instance, I submitted to you a character that was a lesser devil? His evil nature is unquestionably one of the defining characteristics of this character, but I fully intend to play up his drive to advance in the infernal hierarchy. This means -not- just slaughtering random peasants, since doing so means they go to whatever afterlife they're in line for right now and that may not be Baator.

Instead, I need to first corrupt, and consequently damn, them. I have to be friendly and "helpful" in exchange for favors that call for them to do darker and darker deeds and to follow these directives with less and less question as to why I need them done. I also have to conceal my character's nature, since most people won't be too quick to trust a little, red guy with horns. Being part of the infernal hierarchy also means I have superiors that I must occasionally report to, preferably without the rest of the party finding out since I'm concealing who and what I am from them.

For a little extra flavor, I could have small snatches of memory from when I was a mortal; an unusual quality in a devil. I could even write into the backstory that I'm one of those unusually rare Devils that was converted directly to my fiendish form from what I once was. This gives me the opportunity to RP a redemption story if one of the other PC's wants to go that way, since I can relate much, much more readily than the typical devil, whose mortal soul was wracked and drained of all humanity to become a lemure before being promoted to some kind of intelligent devil.

I admit it'd be a difficult RP, but I like a challenge. Would you allow such a character?

[demigodus]

Let's look at these two situations and compare the two:

Good campaign:
NPC: Noble heroes, I need you help. An evil cult seeks to revive an ancient, power dark deity that will destroy the world. I will pay you 10,000 gold pieces to do this and the gods will be forever grateful to you.

PCs: An evil cult! Quick heroes! We haven't a moment to spare! Show us the way good sir.

Evil campaign:
NPC: Greetings. I come to you seeking aid. My cult seeks to revive an ancient dark god and bring forth thousand of years of darkness. Help me, and I'll gladly pay you 10,000 gold pieces as well as a seat of power along side our dark god.

PCs: This guy has 10,000 gold pieces on him!? I kill him and take the gold.

DM: What? No you can't do that.

PCs: Why not? I'm evil. *rolls dice* SWEET! Natural twenty! He's so dead!

DM: You just ruined that quest! Do you know how long it took me to plan that!?

PCs: Yeah, that's great. Let's burn down the orphanage.

What did we learn?

That evil characters aren't willing to cause the end of the world as we know it, for only 10,000 gold pieces?

Honestly, if I was playing an evil character, I would take the quest from the guy asking us to stop the ritual. Just, kill him and take the money after we got all the details first. :smallcool:

[ThiagoMartell]

The problem that the OP is aiming at, I think, is that some DM's declare that they don't allow evil characters in an apparently arbitrary manner.
I don't think there is any problem with that. If you don't want evil in your game, well, don't allow evil in your game. If you don't want wizards in your game, well, don't allow wizards in your game. The DM is running the game, after all.



Out of curiosity, Thiago, how would you feel if, for instance, I submitted to you a character that was a lesser devil? His evil nature is unquestionably one of the defining characteristics of this character, but I fully intend to play up his drive to advance in the infernal hierarchy. This means -not- just slaughtering random peasants, since doing so means they go to whatever afterlife they're in line for right now and that may not be Baator.

Instead, I need to first corrupt, and consequently damn, them. I have to be friendly and "helpful" in exchange for favors that call for them to do darker and darker deeds and to follow these directives with less and less question as to why I need them done. I also have to conceal my character's nature, since most people won't be too quick to trust a little, red guy with horns. Being part of the infernal hierarchy also means I have superiors that I must occasionally report to, preferably without the rest of the party finding out since I'm concealing who and what I am from them.

For a little extra flavor, I could have small snatches of memory from when I was a mortal; an unusual quality in a devil. I could even write into the backstory that I'm one of those unusually rare Devils that was converted directly to my fiendish form from what I once was. This gives me the opportunity to RP a redemption story if one of the other PC's wants to go that way, since I can relate much, much more readily than the typical devil, whose mortal soul was wracked and drained of all humanity to become a lemure before being promoted to some kind of intelligent devil.

I admit it'd be a difficult RP, but I like a challenge. Would you allow such a character?
In a party based game like D&D? Never. You have a solid character goal that goes completely against the default assumptions of the game. It's completely focused on what the character might achieve, requiring extensive spotlight time for him alone, doing solo sidequests to advance.
In a non-standard character-focused D&D game? Maybe, if everyone else agreed that corruption and what have you are fine for the table. The bleakness alone might make me give up on the campaign, though. It's not the kind of story I like to tell, so it's not the kind of game I like to DM.
In an all-evil game where everyone is a bastard? Never, because I would never DM such a game.

[Kelb_Panthera]

I don't think there is any problem with that. If you don't want evil in your game, well, don't allow evil in your game. If you don't want wizards in your game, well, don't allow wizards in your game. The DM is running the game, after all. I'm not a fan of restrictions being added to the game arbitrarily. So I respectfully disagree. Such restrictions being added to a particular campaign to aim the campaign at a certain feel is reason enough, but to never allow a certain option out of personal distaste seems needlessly unfair to me.

I can understand "No evil" if you're trying to run a ....... actually, I can't really justify to myself an alignment restriction like that. Maybe as a way to aim the players toward a heroic feel if they're prone to one-note characters. I find one-dimensional characters utterly maddening though, so I'm not sure how long that game would hold up.

The no wizards thing is my go-to option for a low-magic feel.



In a party based game like D&D? Never. You have a solid character goal that goes completely against the default assumptions of my game. It's completely focused on what the character might achieve, requiring extensive spotlight time for him alone, doing solo sidequests to advance.
In a non-standard character-focused D&D game? Maybe, if everyone else agreed that corruption and what have you are fine for the table. The bleakness alone might make me give up on the campaign, though. It's not the kind of story I like to tell, so it's not the kind of game I like to DM.
In an all-evil game where everyone is a bastard? Never, because I would never DM such a game.

FIFY, but otherwise fair enough. :smallsmile:

I'm reasonably confident I could work such a character into a party dynamic, but I have to admit my games do occasionally get a bit dark, even horrific once in a blue moon.

[Lonely Tylenol]

I am fine with somebody playing a character who is evil.

I can't stand EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEBULLLLLLLLLLLL characters.

I have DM'd for both. The difference is qualitative. I'm sure you can understand that.

[Goblin Muncher]

Just because someone is evil does not mean they are going to betray the party or kill all the quest givers. If someone in your group is doing these things constantly then by all means remove them from your group or talk to them.

Now I'm not going to lie and say I don't want to commit evil acts its the reason why I want to play evil but it doesn't mean I'm going to be disruptive towards the group and the story. Like I said evil can bring an interesting dynamic towards the party. My friend's group needed the location of some ruins, they captured this cult leader and he wasn't about to tell the group the location of his god ruins. My friend then said that he could extract the info from the leader but it would be "deliciously painful". The party at first said no but the leader wasn't talking so they agreed as long as he didn't kill him which the sorc didn't. But while they were exploring the ruins the leader along with a group of cultist had ambush them. My friend even ended up saving the rogue who was about to die and he rationalized it by saying he still had need of skills.It was a close call needless to say the sorcerer finish the job this time.The party rationalize letting the sorcerer torture the the cultist leader as they would save more lives at the end and as long as he wasn't killing the guy they were still preserving life.

I can see why certain GM ban evil characters since the risk are indeed very high but I believe there are other methods in dealing with this instead of outright banning evils characters. If someone is playing evil they have to have experience and a extremely well thought out backstory.Also you as the GM can lay some house rules like if you play evil you cannot betray the party or cannot kill without a reason. Theres a difference between playing evil and playing and evil character just my opinion

[Ravens_cry]

We're in a pirate campaign right now, and we are playing as pirates. If we aren't evil, we are ferociously amoral what with selling captured prisoners as slaves, raiding and pillaging (but not raping, Captain's orders) villages, and all that lovely pirate stuff, and, as I said to some of my fellow party members, that's how evil should be for PC's, ferociously amoral. We aren't going out andstepping on puppies because we are Evil™ but rather doing evil because it helps us fulfil our goals best. Right now, our Captain wants cannon, and selling slaves brings in a fair chunk of coin.

[Lonely Tylenol]

Just because someone is evil does not mean they are going to betray the party or kill all the quest givers. If someone in your group is doing these things constantly then by all means remove them from your group or talk to them.

This is true. However, I want you to fill in this blanks with an alignment:

"I'm going to steal the king's sacred artifact and use it against them because I am _________!"

"At a pivotal point in the adventure, I am going to nonchalantly turn on all of my fellow adventurers because I am _________!"

If you answered the above with "evil", "EEEEEEEEEEEEBULLLLLLLLLLLLL", or the equivalent, congratulations! You guessed correctly! Of course, if this has actually happened with the EEEEEEEEEEEEBULLLLLLLLLLLLL member of your party, you will want to sit them down and politely tell them not to ruin everybody else's fun, and this is why you can't have nice things (like the freedom to be indiscriminately evil).

If you answered the above with "good" or "lawful", then you might want to check your understanding of the above sentences. If you answered "good or lawful" because this has actually happened to you, then you can color me legitimately confused, and pleading for an explanation because oh god why would this happen.

[demigodus]

"I'm going to steal the king's sacred artifact and use it against them because I am _________!"

I could see this actually working out. Would depend on whether the party is okay with going on a quest against the kingdom rather then handing over the McGuffin.

[ThiagoMartell]

I'm not a fan of restrictions being added to the game arbitrarily. So I respectfully disagree. Such restrictions being added to a particular campaign to aim the campaign at a certain feel is reason enough, but to never allow a certain option out of personal distaste seems needlessly unfair to me.
Dude, have you ever tried running a game that made you feel uncomfortable? A game in which you did not have fun? Yes, it is arbitrary, but the point a running a game stops being fun is the point I stop running a game. Having a character running around doing horrible things all the time is not fun at all to me. Why would I put work into running a game that's not fun to me?


I can understand "No evil" if you're trying to run a ....... actually, I can't really justify to myself an alignment restriction like that. Maybe as a way to aim the players toward a heroic feel if they're prone to one-note characters. I find one-dimensional characters utterly maddening though, so I'm not sure how long that game would hold up.

Wait, you lost me. So neutral and good characters are one-dimensional? :smallconfused:


FIFY, but otherwise fair enough. :smallsmile:
Uh... Dungeon crawling and cooperative party dynamics are a D&D assumption.


I'm reasonably confident I could work such a character into a party dynamic, but I have to admit my games do occasionally get a bit dark, even horrific once in a blue moon.
There you have it. Not a game I'd want to run.

[demigodus]

Uh... Dungeon crawling and cooperative party dynamics are a D&D assumption.

Most of my DnD games did not involve dungeon crawling.

cooperative party dynamics are an assumption, yes. However, they can exist with characters that have their own motives. Even if they are selfish. A party of amoral asshats CAN work together. Or a party of 2 amoral asshats and 2 lawful goodies too.

[Ravens_cry]

@Lonely Tylenol:
A case might be made for the latter being a good act if the king was so terrible and dangerous that deposing him was the best option and stealing said artefact was the best way to do so.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Dude, have you ever tried running a game that made you feel uncomfortable? A game in which you did not have fun? I'm absurdly difficult to discomfit. So no, I've never DM'ed a game that made me uncomfortable. As for DM'ing a game that I'm simply not enjoying, once I've realized I'm not enjoying it I immediately try to decipher why and if it's something I can't change, the game is over. No gaming is better than bad gaming.




Wait, you lost me. So neutral and good characters are one-dimensional? :smallconfused: Not at all. Character complexity is independent of alignment, but saying "no evil" cuts off a lot of potential characterization. I'd have just as hard a time envisioning a "No good" game.



Uh... Dungeon crawling and cooperative party dynamics are a D&D assumption. Being evil prevents neither of these things. Evil can cooperate just fine. It's often in the best interest of evil characters to cooperate just as it's often in the best interest of characters of any other alignment. CE is certainly the hardest alignment to properly RP as being beneficial enough to the party to warrant traveling with, but it is doable.



There you have it. Not a game I'd want to run.

It's not always like that. I just sometimes find myself in the mood to run a darker campaign, just as I sometimes find myself in the mood to run a heroic, save the world campaign. I'm very flexible that way. My default is a sandbox with no particular endgame in mind. I organize an area as outlined by the link in my sig with some of the important NPC's designed specifically to compliment one or another party member as a rival or adversary.

[ThiagoMartell]

Most of my DnD games did not involve dungeon crawling.

cooperative party dynamics are an assumption, yes. However, they can exist with characters that have their own motives. Even if they are selfish. A party of amoral asshats CAN work together. Or a party of 2 amoral asshats and 2 lawful goodies too.

Well, that's what quoting out of context gets you, what you're quoting spots making sense.


I'm absurdly difficult to discomfit. So no, I've never DM'ed a game that made me uncomfortable. As for DM'ing a game that I'm simply not enjoying, once I've realized I'm not enjoying it I immediately try to decipher why and if it's something I can't change, the game is over. No gaming is better than bad gaming.
Yeah, so before I start a game, I just say "no, no evil characters for the evulz, thank you" to avoid cutting the game halfway through. I hardly see that as a bad thing.


Not at all. Character complexity is independent of alignment, but saying "no evil" cuts off a lot of potential characterization. I'd have just as hard a time envisioning a "No good" game.
But I never said it was a "no evil" game. :smallconfused:


Being evil prevents neither of these things. Evil can cooperate just fine. It's often in the best interest of evil characters to cooperate just as it's often in the best interest of characters of any other alignment. CE is certainly the hardest alignment to properly RP as being beneficial enough to the party to warrant traveling with, but it is doable.
I wasn't talking about evil characters in general, I was talking about your example character, a devil intent on advancing his infernal rank.


It's not always like that. I just sometimes find myself in the mood to run a darker campaign, just as I sometimes find myself in the mood to run a heroic, save the world campaign. I'm very flexible that way. My default is a sandbox with no particular endgame in mind. I organize an area as outlined by the link in my sig with some of the important NPC's designed specifically to compliment one or another party member as a rival or adversary.
I tend to run sandbox-y games as well, with different groups working towards different goals. I just don't want to spend my Saturday night listening about someone roasting babies, murdering innocents in their sleep, caging their souls into candy and then selling it to little kids. You may have lost my meaning completely - I'm not against evil characters, I'm against cartoonishly evil characters that have evil as their single defining trait.
I've had plenty of evil characters in my game, or characters that started otherwise and ended up evil.

[Lonely Tylenol]

I could see this actually working out. Would depend on whether the party is okay with going on a quest against the kingdom rather then handing over the McGuffin.


@Lonely Tylenol:
A case might be made for the latter being a good act if the king was so terrible and dangerous that deposing him was the best option and stealing said artefact was the best way to do so.

Perhaps I should clarify: I was talking about your Guy Guy, Quest-Giver King. You know, the guy on the throne in Final Fantasy I that says, "Warriors of Light! The BBEG, Garland, kidnapped my daughter and escaped to the north! If you rescue her, I can focus my efforts on building the bridge that gets you to your next plot point!" etc. etc. Not saying that the King necessarily has to be a paragon of virtue, but for absence of mention of specifics, assume that he's neither so good that every sane and just person would bow to him, nor so evil that the above situation becomes a plausible act in the quest for good; otherwise, you're digging for exceptions to rules, which doesn't invalidate the rules.

[Ravens_cry]

Ah, that is a much needed clarification. Still, even then, it is not unknown, in fact it's almost a cliché, for the Quest Giver to be evil and to betray the party at the last moment once the PC has the Five MacGuffins of Power or what have you. In which case, again, good old fashioned regicide may be the best option.
Genre blind assumptions like that make an ass out of Umptions.
Poor Umptions, he was truly the best of us.

[Blightedmarsh]

Here is the thing that bothers me....how do normal people know if they are evil or not? It is not like souls are color coordinated for your convenience.

People have their own consciences, their own belief in what they think is right or wrong. A person with large amounts of scruples may do things that they think are wrong (say seduce an innocent for information) because they think it necessary, someone else with fewer or different scruples might do exactly the same thing for the same reasons but be fine with it. Which one is evil?

At the end of the day everyone is the hero of their own tale; so apart from those serving objectively evil beings how would they know and would they even want to?

Examples:

A tribe believe that might makes right. The strong have the right to take from and use the weak as they see fit but also the obligation to protect them. This is because without their strength the weak have not got a snowball chance in hell of long term survival.

The tribe holds that honor and loyalty are paramount, that justice is best served on the point of a vengeful spear and that real men keep their promises and speak the truth.

*************

The point of this is to take alignment off of the character sheet. It is not something that a character should automatically know. Instead they should be dedicated to a set of ideals to one degree or another.

Instead of saying "I am lawful good" I describe in character what I am like and what I believe in, citing examples from my character history; possibly acting as a Kizer Susae esk unreliable narrator for extra fun.

Whether they are good or evil is up to the DM and could be withheld from the players unless they can role play in a reason to discover it (cue heel realization).

[Andreaz]

At the end of the day everyone is the hero of their own tale; so apart from those serving objectively evil beings how would they know and would they even want to?They wouldn't know. Nor would most people around them either. As much as the alignments can be objective, none of them are binding enough that people are so easily distinguished.
In practice, alignments are absolutely irrelevant and transparent. Only magic and beings made of alignments really care about it.

[Talderas]

"I'm going to steal the king's sacred artifact and use it against them because I am _________!"

Is the king a tyrant or benevolent? Is this a holy artifact that he's keeping locked up because it's a threat to his rule? If so good is a perfectly acceptable answer.

--


Here is the thing that bothers me....how do normal people know if they are evil or not? It is not like souls are color coordinated for your convenience.

They don't. In the D&D universe good/evil/law/chaos are absolute forces that are best represented by the outer planes. It also serves as a mechanical vessel for various spells. Your acts determine where your soul goes on deal and then your soul is used by the outer planes where it becomes demons, devils, celestials, arboreals, whatever and is used in the power struggle.


People have their own consciences, their own belief in what they think is right or wrong. A person with large amounts of scruples may do things that they think are wrong (say seduce an innocent for information) because they think it necessary, someone else with fewer or different scruples might do exactly the same thing for the same reasons but be fine with it. Which one is evil?

Intent should not matter when determining alignment. Intent is something that matters when dealing between two people, but as far as the cosmos is concerned your intent does not matter, just the outcome. This is why a character who commits evil acts but believes he is doing good (rather through magical compulsion or derangement) is still committing evil acts.

[gooddragon1]

Evil played poorly tends to be disruptive and not everyone plays well. It's easier to ban it than hope for experienced players.

[Lonely Tylenol]

Is the king a tyrant or benevolent? Is this a holy artifact that he's keeping locked up because it's a threat to his rule? If so good is a perfectly acceptable answer.

I addressed this literally three posts up from yours:


Perhaps I should clarify: I was talking about your Guy Guy, Quest-Giver King. You know, the guy on the throne in Final Fantasy I that says, "Warriors of Light! The BBEG, Garland, kidnapped my daughter and escaped to the north! If you rescue her, I can focus my efforts on building the bridge that gets you to your next plot point!" etc. etc. Not saying that the King necessarily has to be a paragon of virtue, but for absence of mention of specifics, assume that he's neither so good that every sane and just person would bow to him, nor so evil that the above situation becomes a plausible act in the quest for good; otherwise, you're digging for exceptions to rules, which doesn't invalidate the rules.

Though I meant to say "Good Guy". I'm not sure where "Guy Guy" came from.

The point is, if you had to ASSUME that the king was evil without any foreknowledge (I certainly made no mention of it), then you are reaching for exceptions for an action that, in the stated framework and context, are inexcusable. There may be a context where the above quote makes sense for somebody other than an EEEEEEEEEEBULLLLLLLL character (which means I guess I worded it poorly), but I certainly didn't give it, which means it's a stretch to use it by default. That's like defending baby killing with "well, suppose the baby had a knife..."

Only less hyperbolic and ridiculous. But you get my point.

[Ravens_cry]

We had to assume he was good without any foreknowledge also.:smalltongue:

[demigodus]

Perhaps I should clarify: I was talking about your Guy Guy, Quest-Giver King. You know, the guy on the throne in Final Fantasy I that says, "Warriors of Light! The BBEG, Garland, kidnapped my daughter and escaped to the north! If you rescue her, I can focus my efforts on building the bridge that gets you to your next plot point!" etc. etc. Not saying that the King necessarily has to be a paragon of virtue, but for absence of mention of specifics, assume that he's neither so good that every sane and just person would bow to him, nor so evil that the above situation becomes a plausible act in the quest for good; otherwise, you're digging for exceptions to rules, which doesn't invalidate the rules.

My quote still stands, as it wasn't based on the king being evil. It was based on the party being okay with turning on the kingdom all of a sudden. The action would be rather problematic if the rest of your party doesn't agree with it, but if the entire party agrees to it, I see no issues.

[Venger]

Wait, you lost me. So neutral and good characters are one-dimensional? :smallconfused:.

I think what he means was that any character who's defined solely or predominantly by their alignment (regardless of what that alignment is) is one dimensional.

personally, I'd agree with that, you're (alignment) because of what you do, you don't do things because you're (alignment)

[hamishspence]

Yup. Some alignments might imply not doing certain things though.

"I don't do evil acts- because I'm good" or "I try to avoid doing them, because I'm Not Evil".

The reverse is less common- few Evil characters have strong objections to personally doing Good Deeds- under certain circumstances.

[gearsofclocks]

Why do DMs ban players from making and playing Evil characters? I understand 99.9% of D&D consists of Heroes doing Heroicly Heroic deeds of Heroicness vs the BBEG... but what's so wrong with having an Evil character motivated by the simple want to be bigger and/or badder than the BBEG instead of a need to slay evil? I say, so long as the Evil character can successfully dupe the GGs or hide it outright, why care if the Evil guy generally violates other player's (and their character's) moral code?

Its mainly because people will do evil actions with the reasoning "i am doing this because i am evil."

[Kelb_Panthera]

Yeah, so before I start a game, I just say "no, no evil characters for the evulz, thank you" to avoid cutting the game halfway through. I hardly see that as a bad thing. I see what you're saying, and I do actually agree with you. If a player presents a character whose -only- defining characteristic is his alignment and he has no stated goals for me to work into the story, he'll be rejected. The player will be told "while I'm perfectly okay with evil characters, this isn't a character. It's a charicature. Try again."



But I never said it was a "no evil" game. :smallconfused: Then we've had another miscommunication. I -hate- flat characters. I understand that you don't always have a fully fleshed out character with a page long backstory ready at the beginning of every game, but if a character starts off with little detail and there's no character growth at all, we're likely to run into problems as an incompatible player/dm pairing. If the only thing you can tell me about your character after 2 sessions is his alignment and mechanical build, I'm probably not the DM for you.



I wasn't talking about evil characters in general, I was talking about your example character, a devil intent on advancing his infernal rank. Then you've made some assumptions about how I'd run him. As I said, it's often in an evil character's best interest to cooperate with others. I'd be much more interested in involving the other PC's in advancing my superiors' material plane goals than in corrupting them individually, though I can't say I wouldn't take a swing at it. I like a good cloak-and-dagger type game where my character will have an influence on local politics, and for this character that'd manifest itself as trying to increase the rule of law and the reach of the local governments power within its territory.

I'm getting the impression that a "bad guys win" scenario would leave a bad taste in your mouth though, so I'd be fine with this character being rejected. I get the impression that, if you did accept such a character, I'd either have to go the redemption route (which could be fun) or retire the character when the others realize the influence we've been having is starting to turn oppressive and they rebel against the government we've been empowering. I must, however, reiterate that this example character would -not- be a puppy-kicking, baby-roasting, toon of a villian because that's counter productive to his goals.



I tend to run sandbox-y games as well, with different groups working towards different goals. I just don't want to spend my Saturday night listening about someone roasting babies, murdering innocents in their sleep, caging their souls into candy and then selling it to little kids. You may have lost my meaning completely - I'm not against evil characters, I'm against cartoonishly evil characters that have evil as their single defining trait.
I've had plenty of evil characters in my game, or characters that started otherwise and ended up evil.

I think we're more-or-less on the same page now. We got a little disconnected because I dismissed the example character from my mind when you rejected it but, apparently, you didn't. Sorry for the confusion.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Here is the thing that bothers me....how do normal people know if they are evil or not? It is not like souls are color coordinated for your convenience.

People have their own consciences, their own belief in what they think is right or wrong. A person with large amounts of scruples may do things that they think are wrong (say seduce an innocent for information) because they think it necessary, someone else with fewer or different scruples might do exactly the same thing for the same reasons but be fine with it. Which one is evil?

At the end of the day everyone is the hero of their own tale; so apart from those serving objectively evil beings how would they know and would they even want to?

Examples:

A tribe believe that might makes right. The strong have the right to take from and use the weak as they see fit but also the obligation to protect them. This is because without their strength the weak have not got a snowball chance in hell of long term survival.

The tribe holds that honor and loyalty are paramount, that justice is best served on the point of a vengeful spear and that real men keep their promises and speak the truth.

*************

The point of this is to take alignment off of the character sheet. It is not something that a character should automatically know. Instead they should be dedicated to a set of ideals to one degree or another.

Instead of saying "I am lawful good" I describe in character what I am like and what I believe in, citing examples from my character history; possibly acting as a Kizer Susae esk unreliable narrator for extra fun.

Whether they are good or evil is up to the DM and could be withheld from the players unless they can role play in a reason to discover it (cue heel realization).

For over 99% of the mortal characters in the D&D universe, alignment is both immaterial and unnapparent. It has little to no influence on how most characters interact and can't even be determined without either magic or an epic sense-motive check. The vast majority of mortals have no idea what their alignment is or even that it is something that's metaphysically tangible.

The less than 1% of mortals that do care usually have access to such magic and are related to furthering the goals of the forces of the outer-planes coresponding to their own alignment, with many or perhaps even most of the ones acting the behalf of the forces of evil simply not caring that they're labeled as evil.

Even a significant portion of the immortals of the D&D universe don't care about alignment. Elementals have their own affairs to deal with and for most of them good and evil are just as irrelevant as they are to mortals, except in how the outsiders that correspond to that alignment might be of use to them, though they are much more likely to know their own alignment than mortals.

It's the majority of outsiders that are interested in furthering the cause of their alignment in the universe, and that's largely because doing so is the very purpose of their existence. They were litterally born from the stuff of that alignment to advance its cause in the multiverse.

[hamishspence]

In some cases they started out as mortal souls of that alignment.

[AttilaTheGeek]

Intent should not matter when determining alignment. Intent is something that matters when dealing between two people, but as far as the cosmos is concerned your intent does not matter, just the outcome. This is why a character who commits evil acts but believes he is doing good (rather through magical compulsion or derangement) is still committing evil acts.

(emphasis mine)

Actually, I don't agree with that. I'm going to cite the rock slide example: If a paladin is climbing a mountain to vanquish some evil and accidentally causes a rock slide that flattens an innocent village, is the paladin Evil? Neutral?Should they fall?

[Kelb_Panthera]

In some cases they started out as mortal souls of that alignment.
Reborn then.

(emphasis mine)

Actually, I don't agree with that. I'm going to cite the rock slide example: If a paladin is climbing a mountain to vanquish some evil and accidentally causes a rock slide that flattens an innocent village, is the paladin Evil? Neutral?Should they fall?

Intent does matter. This is pretty explicitly spelled out in both BoED and BoVD. Very few acts are out-and-out evil under all circumstances. Killing isn't one of them. Whether an act is good or evil is determined in the moment though. It doesn't matter if you're commiting what you know is an evil act because it will lead to more good than harm in the long-run. It only matters if it's good or evil now.

Example: an administrator in the ministry of finance discovers that his boss is skimming money off of the royal coffers and decides he's going to turn him in to the minister of finance. You get wind of this, but you know that the boss who's going to be fired as a result is, overall, a good man who's using the money to privately finance several public works projects aimed at helping the poor. You also know that the man that would replace him is a man of many vices who will almost certainly raise taxes and make the poor that much poorer.

Now, after you've tried to convince the administrator to keep quiet for the good of the people, he's bound and determined to go to the minister anyway. You kill him to keep him quiet, rationalizing that you're doing it to prevent thousands of people from suffering.

Unfortunately, you've still commited an evil act. You killed an innocent man to conceal a secret. That's murder. You could've worked toward discreditting him, you could've told his boss what was up and let him handle it, you could've even kidnapped the fellow and dumped him with a sack of money in another kingdom and you'd've remained in neutral territory. Instead you crossed the line into evil and killed him.

Note, however, that this particular evil action isn't enough, on its own, to make you an evil character. If this was one act amongst a life of feeding puppies and teaching children their letters, you're probably a good or at least a neutral character. It's only a consistent pattern of evil thoughts and acts that make you evil.

[Morithias]

Perhaps I should clarify: I was talking about your Guy Guy, Quest-Giver King. You know, the guy on the throne in Final Fantasy I that says, "Warriors of Light! The BBEG, Garland, kidnapped my daughter and escaped to the north! If you rescue her, I can focus my efforts on building the bridge that gets you to your next plot point!" etc. etc. Not saying that the King necessarily has to be a paragon of virtue, but for absence of mention of specifics, assume that he's neither so good that every sane and just person would bow to him, nor so evil that the above situation becomes a plausible act in the quest for good; otherwise, you're digging for exceptions to rules, which doesn't invalidate the rules.

I tell him to find someone else to do it. Why? Simple.

You save a village and you're reward from the bakery and a night with the bar maid.

You save a kingdom, you're rewarded from the royal coffers and maybe the princess's hand.

You save the world, and you're given a pat on the back, and expected to do it again next month.

Also why is the king hiring 4 nobodies who can't afford even the most basic gear? I'm not joking in Final Fantasy 1 when you get this quest, you're low level, and highly under equipped. This guy seriously doesn't have a champion on standby JUST in case this happened.

Also with a lot of MMORPGs and Sandbox games. "Um, Mr. Emperor, why do you need to send me? Why not send..oh..I dunno. THE GUARDS THAT ARE AT THE LEVEL CAP!?"

Ironically my good characters would be more likely to reject the quest than my evil characters. The good character goes "Uh...you seriously don't have a champion? What's your angle?" and figures if the princess dies and the king doesn't have a heir, hey democracy time! Better than monarchy any day.

The evil character I plays goes. "Just have my reward ready when I come back, dead, alive, good, evil, Yuzari Yuzuhara hunts for everyone, so long as they can pay."

[AttilaTheGeek]

Intent does matter. This is pretty explicitly spelled out in both BoED and BoVD.

Actually, that's the side I was arguing. Talderas said:


Intent should not matter when determining alignment. Intent is something that matters when dealing between two people, but as far as the cosmos is concerned your intent does not matter, just the outcome. This is why a character who commits evil acts but believes he is doing good (rather through magical compulsion or derangement) is still committing evil acts.

And I responded with:


Actually, I don't agree with that. I'm going to cite the rock slide example: If a paladin is climbing a mountain to vanquish some evil and accidentally causes a rock slide that flattens an innocent village, is the paladin Evil? Neutral?Should they fall?

The rhetorical answer I had in mind was no, they're still Good, and just as Lawful as they were before. If paladins can fall for an unintended, unforseen consequence of an action taken in the name of Good, then may [the god(s) of your campaign] help the few that are left.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Actually, that's the side I was arguing. Talderas said:



And I responded with:



The rhetorical answer I had in mind was no, they're still Good, and just as Lawful as they were before. If paladins can fall for an unintended, unforseen consequence of an action taken in the name of Good, then may [the god(s) of your campaign] help the few that are left.

Sorry about that, I guess I was responding to the quote in your post instead of your actual post. Oops. :smallredface:

[Blightedmarsh]

If the vast majority of mortal beings either don't know or don't have an alignment then surely it should be possible to play one.

It does sound like their is call for an ineffable alignment, possibly as something a level one character starts with and you graduate from as the character evolves.

[hamishspence]

The rhetorical answer I had in mind was no, they're still Good, and just as Lawful as they were before. If paladins can fall for an unintended, unforseen consequence of an action taken in the name of Good, then may [the god(s) of your campaign] help the few that are left.

According to the BoVD- the paladin would not fall- unless it was the case that it was actual negligence or worse, instead of unforeseen consequences that it would have been unreasonable to expect him to foresee.

[Kelb_Panthera]

If the vast majority of mortal beings either don't know or don't have an alignment then surely it should be possible to play one.
It does sound like their is call for an ineffable alignment, possibly as something a level one character starts with and you graduate from as the character evolves.

:smallconfused: What?

I'm usually pretty good at ciphering someone's intended statement, even if it's not the most skillfully parsed, but I have no idea what you just said.

The only response I can make is to reiterate the fact that, yes, the vast majority of mortal creatures have no idea what their alignment is and it would be largely irrelevant to their lives if they did.

I've said it before, and will happily say again, if you don't like the default alignment system then use one of the variants or just scrap it. There's very little that's changed if good, evil, law, and chaos have no mechanical considerations at all.

Personally, I find it does what I believe it was intended to do rather well. It creates a mechanical framework with which that small subset of creatures that actually care about alignment can interact in a fashion beyond the mundane and magical ways that all creatures interact.

[Blightedmarsh]

Say you have your classic alignments of law/chaos and good/evil. The gods, fiends, divine/infernal castors/supplicants and spirits fall on and are governed by these axises.

Living mortal souls are ineffable. A paladin casts detect evil on Joe the fighter and he doesn't get a "ding" on his evildar; instead he gets a blinding headache.

A mortal has free will; freedom of choice. The alignment of his soul is in a state of quantum suspension; unknown and simultaneously of all possible alignments until either it is observed or a threshold crossed. Where upon the field collapses and the soul is realized to be of a given alignment. Once its their is locked on an almost irrevocable course that can not be changed without great sacrifice.

Let us apply the ineffable model to Anakin Skywalker as an example:

To begin with he was ineffable. Whilst there was a darkness about him his path was still his own, his destiny his to make. It was this ineffability that prevented others from realizing the darkness in his path because it was not set.

When he slaughtered the jedi younglings he crossed a moral event horizon. By this act he embraced the darkside and was given great power by it; at a price. From here his destiny was dominated by darkness.

In the end however he was only able to escape the dark side and return to the light by sacrificing his own life. Even then however he was not ineffable, that was lost when he embraced the darkness.

[Darius Kane]

Rename the alignments.
Good = Altruistic
Evil = Selfish
Done.

[hamishspence]

This doesn't account for characters who, motivated by altrusitic feelings toward "the many" commit vile acts against "the few".

Or, on the other side, characters who while self-centred, have a moral code that prevents them from violating anybody's rights.

[Darius Kane]

This doesn't account for characters who, motivated by altrusitic feelings toward "the many" commit vile acts against "the few".
Someone who commits vile acts is hardly altruistic. As they say - "Hell is paved with good intentions".


Or, on the other side, characters who while self-centred, have a moral code that prevents them from violating anybody's rights.
That's called being Lawful.

[Talderas]

Intent does matter. This is pretty explicitly spelled out in both BoED and BoVD. Very few acts are out-and-out evil under all circumstances. Killing isn't one of them. Whether an act is good or evil is determined in the moment though. It doesn't matter if you're commiting what you know is an evil act because it will lead to more good than harm in the long-run. It only matters if it's good or evil now.

Intent does not matter for determining whether an act is evil or not. Whether an act is evil or not is objective and not subjective. Where intent comes into play is when you're dealing with classes like paladin where their abilities can be granted or revoked based on one single act rather than the culmination of acts (alignment). A fallen paladin does not need to switch to another alignment, he just needs to knowingly commit a single evil act which is in and of itself unlikely to cause an alignment shift. A Monk loses his abilities when he has performed a sufficient quantity of chaotic acts to shift him from Lawful to Neutral on the Law/Chaos scale. A barbarian loses his powers when he acts lawfully enough to end up in the lawful alignment. A druid loses his powers when he commits enough lawful/good/chaotic/evil acts that his alignment his LG/CG/LE/CE.

[hamishspence]

Someone who commits vile acts is hardly altruistic.

Dexter? Other characters (Jack Bauer) who do horrible things like torture, but always motivated by "protecting The People"?

Refusal to violate others' human rights isn't just "being Lawful" it's "trying to be Not Evil".

[Doxkid]

Why do DMs ban players from making and playing Evil characters?

Because some people take "I'm an evil guy!" as a free pass for:
-Screwing over the party
-Doing stupid things
-30 minute rape rants
-Making the game unplayable.

The first and second are what typically happen. Most people are stupid; giving them more options just means you gave them a whole list of new ways they can prove they are stupid.

The third is creepy and makes people uncomfortable. No one wants to hear your rape-fantasy at the table. If you can say in passing "Oh yeah, I rape murder and pillage everything within walking distance. Could I roll for the free stuff I get?" that's fine, but some people slam down a notebook and start reading erotica. No.

Finally, the last one is usually people who don't know any better. They learned Necromancer=Skeleton hoard and thus have 537 humanoid skeletons following them and trying to participate everywhere. "George (skeleton 153) turns the doornob. Then Leroy (422)pulls the door half a foot. Then Jenny (179) opens it a bit more..." 90% of first time necromancers do this. It's like a rite of passage.

[Darius Kane]

Dexter? Other characters (Jack Bauer) who do horrible things like torture, but always motivated by "protecting The People"?
Any evil act can be justified in this manner. Just because they do it "for the People" doesn't change the fact they are evil.


Refusal to violate others' human rights isn't just "being Lawful" it's "trying to be Not Evil".
I refuse to hit a girl. Not because I think girls are weak or too precious to hurt, but because I was raised, indoctrinated by women (my mother, aunts and grandmothers) to not do it. I'm not trying to be not Evil. I'm following my programing.
If a character is selfish and the ONLY thing that stops him from violating other's rights is his personal "code of conduct" or whatever, then he is not altruistic. He is simply more strongly Lawful than EvilSelfish.

[hamishspence]

Any evil act can be justified in this manner. Just because they do it "for the People" doesn't change the fact they are evil.
And some can be couched in terms of the personal sacrifice of the person doing them. In a D&D world, they might even be sacrificing their afterlife- changing it from a happy one to a horrible one.


I refuse to hit a girl. Not because I think girls are weak or too precious to hurt, but because I was raised, indoctrinated by women (my mother, aunts and grandmothers) to not do it. I'm not trying to be not Evil. I'm following my programing.
If a character is selfish and the ONLY thing that stops him from violating other's rights is his personal "code of conduct" or whatever, then he is not altruistic.
True- but being evil requires more than simply being "selfish"- it requires actually committing harmful deeds. A person might refuse to behave in an evil fashion for "selfish reasons"- such as unwillingness to damage their own self-image- doesn't change the fact that they're refusing to do evil.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Intent does not matter for determining whether an act is evil or not. Whether an act is evil or not is objective and not subjective. Where intent comes into play is when you're dealing with classes like paladin where their abilities can be granted or revoked based on one single act rather than the culmination of acts (alignment). A fallen paladin does not need to switch to another alignment, he just needs to knowingly commit a single evil act which is in and of itself unlikely to cause an alignment shift. A Monk loses his abilities when he has performed a sufficient quantity of chaotic acts to shift him from Lawful to Neutral on the Law/Chaos scale. A barbarian loses his powers when he acts lawfully enough to end up in the lawful alignment. A druid loses his powers when he commits enough lawful/good/chaotic/evil acts that his alignment his LG/CG/LE/CE.

To the bold: I'm sorry, but you're mistaken by RAW.

As I said in the post you quoted, intent explicitly does matter according to both the major sources on the subject. One even gives an example of a paladin killing people by causing a rock-slide, as has been highlighted in this thread previously, to clarify that what the character intended was important to the alignment of the action.

Torture, rape, and soul destruction are a few that are called out as unfailingly evil in all circumstances, but killing in particular is highlighted as being entirely dependent on intent and circumstance for determining its alignment.

You're free to houserule otherwise if you feel it makes for a better game but, by RAW, intent matters.

[hamishspence]

killing in particular is highlighted as being entirely dependent on intent for determining its alignment.

That said, context may matter as well- if the person has perfectly pure intent- but, the context makes their decision seem negligent in the eyes of the DM.

[Kelb_Panthera]

That said, context may matter as well- if the person has perfectly pure intent- but, the context makes their decision seem negligent in the eyes of the DM.

You're right of course, I should ammend that to read "killing in particular is highlighted as entirely dependent on intent and circumstance to determine the alignment of the act."

I'll edit that to more accurately reflect the rules.

Nice catch. :smallsmile:

[Talderas]

To the bold: I'm sorry, but you're mistaken by RAW.

As I said in the post you quoted, intent explicitly does matter according to both the major sources on the subject. One even gives an example of a paladin killing people by causing a rock-slide, as has been highlighted in this thread previously, to clarify that what the character intended was important to the alignment of the action.

Torture, rape, and soul destruction are a few that are called out as unfailingly evil in all circumstances, but killing in particular is highlighted as being entirely dependent on intent and circumstance for determining its alignment.

You're free to houserule otherwise if you feel it makes for a better game but, by RAW, intent matters.

Intent must not matter otherwise alignment creates a paradox. Either intent doesn't matter and it's objective (which falls in line with the description of alignment in the PHB) or intent does matter and its subjective and consequently relative. If alignment is subjective and relative then I can create a serial killer that slaughters parents and is good aligned. His intent is good, dealing with abusive parents, and he doesn't know that the parents killed aren't abusive, therefore he is not committing evil acts because his intent is a good outcome. Further, if alignment is subjective then the entire basis of the outer planes good vs evil/law vs chaos conflict and the absolute forces presented by them are entirely pointless. If alignment is subjective then you can foil spells detect evil by just believing and intending to do good while committing evil acts. Atonement also absolves a person of an evil act committed unwittingly which is what intent would cause.

Context is a whole different beast and that is what matters in all these situations for determining the alignment of act that are not natively good or evil and can even serve to make normally good or evil acts neutral. Context deals with facts and circumstances and is consequently objective and not subjective. Violence and killing aren't evil acts but they're aren't good acts either. Is the creature being killed evil? Is it a noncombatant? Is the killing necessary? All these questions answer context, all these questions will usually have an absolute answer, and all those questions serve to help point out the alignment of the act.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Yes, but intent is explicitly one of the points of context that's taken into account.

Also, overarching intent doesn't matter. It's only immediate intent.

To make the world a better place by removing <undesired element X> doesn't matter if you don't determine that the creature you're slaying actually fits the criteria of <undesired element X>.

For your example of a serial killer wanting to eliminate abusive parents, if he doesn't actually determine that the parents he's killing are abusive then he has no immediate reason to kill that particular parent. The kill would be a kill without reason which is an evil act.

Alignment doesn't care about your long-term goals, only the immediate situation. Under any other assumption all acts are objectively evil since at some point in the future evil will come of it, according to the laws of probability.

To determine if killing a particular creature is good, neutral, or evil you have to ask several questions, the first and foremost of which is "Why are you killing this particular creature." noting that overarching goals are disqualified. You have to have a legitimate reason, relating to that creature, to kill him. Valid answers include such things as "He's trying to kill me," or "if I don't, I know with certainty that he will do evil in the immediate future," wherein certainty is measured by some degree of objective proof in the form of a known pattern of behavior or actual physical evidence of intent to do evil I.E. a cerimonial knife dedicated to a god that deals in sacrifices, not pure conjecture.

[draconomicon]

http://www.nodiatis.com/pub/15.jpg (http://www.nodiatis.com/personality.htm)

[Kelb_Panthera]

http://www.nodiatis.com/pub/19.jpg (http://www.nodiatis.com/personality.htm)

Your image didn't load.

Edit: my mistake. Now showing my results in the quote box.

[Eldonauran]

Hmm....


http://www.nodiatis.com/pub/8.jpg (http://www.nodiatis.com/personality.htm)

Eerily accurate. :smallbiggrin:

[hamishspence]

To determine if killing a particular creature is good, neutral, or evil you have to ask several questions, the first and foremost of which is "Why are you killing this particular creature." noting that overarching goals are disqualified. You have to have a legitimate reason, relating to that creature, to kill him.

I wonder if a similar approach should be taken to "stealing"?

[Stront]

I hate to do it but let us interject real-world law and logic to this scenario. To justify deadly force you have to be in a situation where you are presented with the imminent threat of great bodily harm or death to you or to another person.

For someone to qualify for such behavior they would have to have a weapon or other instrument, which the use of such thing would cause great bodily harm or death to you or to another person.

In a fantasy world; someone without a weapon in hand can still be very deadly. Look at a monk or a wizard for example. For Western society the law is pretty clear cut and has no factor of alignment. Anyone whether good, neutral or evil that could justify the aforementioned principles would be within the law to use deadly force.

The problem is none of us have a static alignment. We may shift through many alignments in a given day let alone in different situations. So trying to neatly make a rule to explain good, neutral and evil is a futile chore at best.

What makes things even more difficult is when you try to stereotype alignments. Can a lawful evil character be as honorable as a lawful good one? Can a neutral character be greedier than an evil one? Look at the spirit of the alignment and sit back and enjoy the game. Every evil character can have a moment of compassion or kindness and every good character can have a moment of selfishness or rage.

[Phelix-Mu]

Hate the sin, not the sinner, to quote a famous man from a rarely-used setting.

Along the same lines, character alignment should be seen more as a generalization of their actions. Truly, a person with free will is neither good nor evil, lawful or chaotic, but rather those are labels we assign to their actions, and then for a shorthand or rubric we call the noble, law-abiding paladin lawful good, the druid neutral, etc.

As I mentioned before and has oft been noted by others, alignment isn't really an iron rule. Anyone can change their ways (in my campaigns, even creatures with alignment subtypes occasionally vary from the normal behaviors of their kind), but just as in real life, repeated actions become habits that become increasingly harder to break the longer one lives with them. Used to making spare coin by strong-arming merchants? Life may seem pretty harsh once you decide that this really isn't a good way to live. Used to chastity? Visiting a house of ill-repute may find you rather out of your element, a likely victim of exploitation by the ladies/men/otherwise of said institution. Used to the good feelings you get from helping the poor? When your druid vows force you to tell the poor to find another way to heat their homes than indiscriminate logging, you might not like yourself very much.

I like alignment stuff, cause it can force people into situations where creative problem-solving is called for, where the obvious answer is for some reason not in-character, and some muddling through or compromise is necessary. All excellent for role playing development.

[AttilaTheGeek]

I've collected all the possible results from the test here, so that people can look at all the possible results. I've also encased them in a spoiler tag so that they don't fill the entire page.


http://www.nodiatis.com/pub/26.jpg (http://www.nodiatis.com/personality.htm)

http://www.nodiatis.com/pub/25.jpg (http://www.nodiatis.com/personality.htm)

http://www.nodiatis.com/pub/24.jpg (http://www.nodiatis.com/personality.htm)

http://www.nodiatis.com/pub/23.jpg (http://www.nodiatis.com/personality.htm)

http://www.nodiatis.com/pub/22.jpg (http://www.nodiatis.com/personality.htm)

http://www.nodiatis.com/pub/21.jpg (http://www.nodiatis.com/personality.htm)

http://www.nodiatis.com/pub/20.jpg (http://www.nodiatis.com/personality.htm)

http://www.nodiatis.com/pub/19.jpg (http://www.nodiatis.com/personality.htm)

http://www.nodiatis.com/pub/18.jpg (http://www.nodiatis.com/personality.htm)

http://www.nodiatis.com/pub/17.jpg (http://www.nodiatis.com/personality.htm)

http://www.nodiatis.com/pub/16.jpg (http://www.nodiatis.com/personality.htm)

http://www.nodiatis.com/pub/15.jpg (http://www.nodiatis.com/personality.htm)

http://www.nodiatis.com/pub/14.jpg (http://www.nodiatis.com/personality.htm)

http://www.nodiatis.com/pub/13.jpg (http://www.nodiatis.com/personality.htm)

http://www.nodiatis.com/pub/12.jpg (http://www.nodiatis.com/personality.htm)

http://www.nodiatis.com/pub/11.jpg (http://www.nodiatis.com/personality.htm)

http://www.nodiatis.com/pub/10.jpg (http://www.nodiatis.com/personality.htm)

(For the record, I am a Tactician.)

Edit to add: Note that very few of them seem to be Evil. (Of course, that might just be because no one wants an online quiz to tell them they're a heartless killer, but I digress).

[Kelb_Panthera]

@ Stront:

There's a very simple reason that RL laws are ignored in these discussions. They vary from one place to another. They're a subjective measure of what a society finds acceptable and unacceptable and don't even necessarily match up with what that society would call good and evil, providing they had such labels to begin with. Any reference to the concept of alignment in regards to RL is likewise pointless, since IRL you don't have one. There's certainly no objective measure for good and evil in reality and no magic to interact with it if there was.


Hate the sin, not the sinner, to quote a famous man from a rarely-used setting.

Along the same lines, character alignment should be seen more as a generalization of their actions. Truly, a person with free will is neither good nor evil, lawful or chaotic, but rather those are labels we assign to their actions, and then for a shorthand or rubric we call the noble, law-abiding paladin lawful good, the druid neutral, etc.

As I mentioned before and has oft been noted by others, alignment isn't really an iron rule. Anyone can change their ways (in my campaigns, even creatures with alignment subtypes occasionally vary from the normal behaviors of their kind), but just as in real life, repeated actions become habits that become increasingly harder to break the longer one lives with them. Used to making spare coin by strong-arming merchants? Life may seem pretty harsh once you decide that this really isn't a good way to live. Used to chastity? Visiting a house of ill-repute may find you rather out of your element, a likely victim of exploitation by the ladies/men/otherwise of said institution. Used to the good feelings you get from helping the poor? When your druid vows force you to tell the poor to find another way to heat their homes than indiscriminate logging, you might not like yourself very much.

I like alignment stuff, cause it can force people into situations where creative problem-solving is called for, where the obvious answer is for some reason not in-character, and some muddling through or compromise is necessary. All excellent for role playing development.

Your ruling that creatures with an alignment subtype can change their alignment isn't a houserule you know. It's actually perfectly RAW legal to have good fiends and evil celestials.

As to the bulk of your post; that's not how it works. Every creature in the D&D multiverse has an alignment, though most don't know or care what their alignment is.

What you have to realize is that, according to the lore, the cosmic force that is alignment actually existed before there were any creatures at all. These cosmic forces (law, chaos, good, and evil) for some ineffible reason bind themselves to creatures that exhibit certain behavioral patterns, noting that behavior includes both thought and deed. This is what determines a creature's alignment. If a creature's behavior is distributed equally between two of the opposing forces, ethical or moral, they're neutral on that axis.

Most mindless creatures and creatures of animal intelligence are automatically true neutral because they have no significant moral or ethical motivations for the cosmic forces to align with. It requires something supernatural to align a these creatures.

[Kelb_Panthera]

I wonder if a similar approach should be taken to "stealing"?

In fact, I do believe such an approach to determining the morality (the alignment axis) of stealing is necessary. It's unquestionably chaotic, but there are circumstances under which stealing can be good, evil, or neither.

[Stront]

@ Stront:

There's a very simple reason that RL laws are ignored in these discussions. They vary from one place to another. They're a subjective measure of what a society finds acceptable and unacceptable and don't even necessarily match up with what that society would call good and evil, providing they had such labels to begin with. Any reference to the concept of alignment in regards to RL is likewise pointless, since IRL you don't have one. There's certainly no objective measure for good and evil in reality and no magic to interact with it if there was.

I agree, I merely wanted to point out that it is always going to be a contested subject since we are the ones reasoning what is good, evil, and neutral. It literally is based on the DM or Player's personal views and reasoning. It is just something I don't bother to get bogged down with unless it is glaringly wrong consistently.

[ThiagoMartell]

I agree, I merely wanted to point out that it is always going to be a contested subject since we are the ones reasoning what is good, evil, and neutral. It literally is based on the DM or Player's personal views and reasoning. It is just something I don't bother to get bogged down with unless it is glaringly wrong consistently.
Erm, it isn't. D&D has guidelines for alignment specifically because of that.

[Stront]

Erm, it isn't. D&D has guidelines for alignment specifically because of that.

You are missing the point. There are no clear cut scenarios that cover every situation and what <insert alignment> would do. Therefore, it is clear as mud. They give you a template that says here is how you would act in a vacuum.