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Bartmanhomer
2017-02-22, 08:36 PM
Hey everyone. I thought of something. If you have one member of the team is evil (doesn't matter if it's LE, NE or CE.) and you really trust that PC but then he or she betray your team and the outcome turns very bad for everybody. How will you handled this betrayal from an Evil PC?

Lord Raziere
2017-02-22, 08:40 PM
Kick the jerk from the group. That is not fun for anyone.

Which is why no one lets evil PC's be a thing in the first place most of the time. It doesn't end well. Unless your one of the few who knows what they're doing.

Keltest
2017-02-22, 08:40 PM
Off hand? I assume that, since it turned out badly for me, my character would be dead or otherwise in a situation I don't want to be in and cant immediately get out of.

barring that though, I'm either going after the player OOC for being a jerk to the table if this was a spontaneous thing, or play damage control if this was an action agreed upon by the group as being allowed, then probably follow up by trying to get revenge on the traitor.

Although, I suppose it partially depends on why they betrayed us. If they were blackmailed into it or otherwise forced to do it against their will, I might be more lenient and understanding.

veti
2017-02-22, 09:31 PM
I'm thinking, why did I trust an evil PC in the first place?

My response depends on whether the betrayal had a plausible roleplaying reason behind it, or whether it was just the player being a jerk. In the former case, I think "sneaky bastard, I'll get you for that". In the latter case, I think "right, lesson learned, don't play with this f-wad".

Grim Portent
2017-02-22, 09:32 PM
Hunt the PC down and seek recompense or vengeance, which being dictated largely by my mood and feelings towards the PC prior to the betrayal.

Most likely I'd challenge them to a duel of some sort when I found them, give them a chance to finish the job they failed before in an honorable manner, then either kill or subjugate them if I won. Possibly forgive them if the whim takes me and return to the old group dynamic once suitable restitution had been made.

If I died, no harm done, the dice fall where they fall and dying to treachery is a good enough way for a PCs tale to end. I'd just roll up a new character and get back to the game.

NecroDancer
2017-02-22, 09:41 PM
It depends....

Is the betrayal done out of spite (aka "that guy") or was it done with the GMs permission (aka "amazing plot twist").

Bartmanhomer
2017-02-22, 10:48 PM
I think that DM should ban Evil PC unless they got a logical and reasonable explanation that they should allow evil PC in the game. :annoyed:

JHShadon
2017-02-22, 11:39 PM
Might be a case of it being the thing that makes the most sense for the character to do, maybe he hasn't been getting along with the rest of the party, maybe something that was vitally important to him was on the line, or some other reason entirely. However it shouldn't be for no reason or a stupid reason, and the player should have a new character ready since it's likely for his pc to die or get turned into an npc.

daniel_ream
2017-02-22, 11:51 PM
You collectively turn to the player in question and the GM and state, firmly and unequivocally, "No, that didn't happen".

Mechalich
2017-02-23, 02:53 AM
If this was an unplanned action that the PC simply claims was 'in-character' for some reason, then you have a big problem that requires OOC discussion about how people should play at that table and whether or not evil PCs should be allowed at all.

If this was planned out as part of the plot, then that's okay - the evil PC is now and NPC and the player generates a new character to help work with the party (or whatever remains of it, which if this was planned should be almost everyone aside from any pre-planned deaths) to wreak righteous (or not-so-righteous, depending on the party in question) vengeance.

Koo Rehtorb
2017-02-23, 03:08 AM
It depends entirely on the system and group dynamic? Unexpected devastating betrayals is entirely fine for some groups and systems, and totally unacceptable for others.

I've played in a group where PCs were random murderous scum and villainy thrown together because they can't take on ten goblins by themselves, and it was entirely appropriate and expected for them to turn on each other the moment the had a reason to and could get more treasure for themselves.

I've played in a group where the DM would always assign one PC to be the secret traitor, out to sabotage the party from within. Over various arcs this has led to TPKs, the entire party getting captured and sold to slavers, the entire party getting sacrificed on altars, and various other horrible fates.

Whatever works for the group is fine. And someone not fitting into a certain group dynamic and choosing to leave is also fine.

Cozzer
2017-02-23, 04:27 AM
What Rethorb said. If you're playing Vampire or something, evil PCs betraying each other is part of the premise and should be expected. If you're playing a high-fantasy game about heroes (possibly traveling through dungeons and figthing dragons), it's not part of the premise and the GM should make it known from the beginning if that's a thing that can happen in his game.

I don't like Evil campaigns where PCs betray each other and would never sign up for one, and would be pretty pissed to discover a campaign I'm already playing actually was such a campaign halfway.

Prince Zahn
2017-02-23, 05:12 AM
Based on how well I might know you, Bart, I'll assume you are playing 3.5 D&D and you'll correct me otherwise.

Typically, the core rules of D&D (specifically under alignment and description) specifically advise DMs and players against playing evil characters for this very reason - inherent distrust, potential betrayal, backstabbing, conflict at the table breaking real life friendships, you name it.

Playing an evil character is usually not allowed by DMs unless they are shooting for something that would justify it, or are equipped to handle those possibilities. That said, it's not impossible, examples of evil characters teaming up with the good guys might include Belkar in the Order of the Stick, or Iago in alladin (at least initially, it's been years since I watched that movie). I think a good failsafe when someone wants to play an evil character, to have the player describe during character creation in detail what makes the character evil,
what is the player planning to do with him, why the players should trust him or her, and where this character's evil draws the line(which will absolutely never happen.) It breaks a bit of the climax of betrayal, if that is what your friend planned to do, sure, but in this case maximum climax is bad.

Bottom line - coordinate betreyal consensually, if it absolutely must happen. otherwise, don't do it.

Efrate
2017-02-23, 06:06 AM
I think its fine, if you do it well. An evil character can have any nymber of reasons for betraying a party, from something as petty as more loot for me to being a secret plant of an evil cult that needs to convert or sacrifice them to summon and evil god. I have no problem with it as long as its done well, and not for the lulz. Just cause you are evil does not give your character cart blanche to TPK cause its what your alignment says. If you have a reason though, and your party knows you are evil or at least heavily suspects you are, then precautions should be taken. Not saving a team member who is falling off a cliff for no reason but I'm a bad guy blargh is bad. That character has rock falls, they die and can roll something new. Not saving the paladin carrying the relic that stops your nefarious plot? Let him fall.

I generally discourage evil players when I DM, unless its an all evil game, where advantages and cost of betrays vs. working together are cold evaluated is part and parcel. All good. In a normal game?

D&D 3.5 Forgotten Realms Campaign:

Let me tell you the tale of one Captain Pious, a CE trying to be N. Pious was a sailor who lost his ship and winded up 1000 leagues inland. We do not know how. Likely booze was involved. Pious was aiming for TN by being CE. He would murder a bunch of freedom fighters in an oppressed town in the night because they were noisy. Then own up to it and make sure everyone else in the team was spared. He'd sell some goblin children into slavery for a tiny profit, then go out of his way to assit a farmer in need during a rough harvest who hurt his leg. He just played both ends equally, doing acts of alturism,tyranny, and like more or less on a whim. Yet he stayed with a mostly good and neutral party. His overriding arc was trying to experience everything and strive for a middle ground, and though he was clearly CE, he tried for N. The party ostirch syndromed it mostly and saw him as an eccentric N.

He worked with adventures because 2 heads are better than one, and 6 are better than 2, you can do more and experience more. He sold out the party, then freed them (profiting in the process), drove an elf PC to near insanity, then apologized profusely and sincerely for making total mockery of all he believed in and held dear. He was also the first in line to lead the team on an adventure to the graveyard of ships for a mcguffin of major import, and gladly helped, as he also gladly chuckled as party memebers fell. The meglodon who ended up TPKing sucked, but pious was there almost to the end, fighting to save his elf friend (whom he nearly drove insane) as he laughed at the ranger dying to an animal.

How did this work out? Weirdly, but he RPed it well and had a great reason even if it was convoluted. Why did the party stick with him? Well he always proved useful and as much as they didn't like a lot of what he did. He would philosophically argue with the elvan monk and have a very reasonable and rationed explanation for everything, they RPed it out and it was great. Didn't always agree but managed to agree to disagree. He was also an excellent scout, beating out our ranger who he would near constantly belittle and one up about it (ranger was very competitive being the "best hunter and tracker" around and he never hunted or tracked anything as well as the rogue). He proved his usefulness, and despite his very obvious flaws was an endearing and consummate member of the team.

You can do evil right, and just accept the consequences. That might be betrayal. That might be TPK, or near TPK, or cause PvP, but that isn't always bad if it is done well and reasoned, and makes for some of the most memorable characters and stories.

You can also be more Hurr dur eveel lulz. You deal with the second OOC up to and including removing them from the group. You enjoy the ride and the tale with the first,and if death happens, well you played with a double edged sword and got cut. Here's 4d6; what else you want to play?

Cozzer
2017-02-23, 06:18 AM
I'm really wary of allowing fatal betrayals, because for me it skirts the IC/OOC boundary.

If character A betrays character B and makes him lose money, or tells a secret of his to other people, or something like that it's OK, it's part of the game. It's up to B's player how the character reacts, and the game goes on.

But if character A betrays character B and this causes B's death, the game is over for the player of character B. Sure, they can make another character, but in a more story-focused campaign that's not part of the game, that's the game ending and another game starting. From B's player's point of view, it's another person arbitrarily deciding he can't play the character he likes anymore.

Of course, characters killing each other can happen because of intra-party conflict even without a traitor, but in this case both characters have to escalate before the conflict becomes deadly combat, which means they both made a choice and suffer the consequences.

(Everything I said goes off the window if there's resurrection available for the characters in the setting, obiviously.)

Darth Tom
2017-02-23, 06:25 AM
[QUOTE=Koo Rehtorb;21736460]I've played in a group where PCs were random murderous scum and villainy thrown together because they can't take on ten goblins by themselves, and it was entirely appropriate and expected for them to turn on each other the moment the had a reason to and could get more treasure for themselves.

I've played in a group where the DM would always assign one PC to be the secret traitor, out to sabotage the party from within. Over various arcs this has led to TPKs, the entire party getting captured and sold to slavers, the entire party getting sacrificed on altars, and various other horrible fates.
QUOTE]

These can be fun, especially when the game's overall atmosphere is relatively light. I used to play a lot of Paranoia, where there was less "I can't believe you did that" and more applause at the audacity of some of the betrayals. In a fundamentally serious, team-based game though, it's no fun at all unless agreed as part of the plot.

BWR
2017-02-23, 06:56 AM
Depends on the group, depends on the characters, depends on the circumstances.

It can range anywhere from "awesome" to "group ruiningly awful"

Lawleepawpz
2017-02-23, 08:47 AM
Step 1: Play a super OP and optimized Paladin but never show off.
Step 2: Visit righteous vengeance upon the betrayer.
Step 3: Figure out why they did it.
Step 4: Figure out if you have to go and visit righteous vengeance upon a play and not just his character.

"Why is a Paladin adventuring with an evil character?" Why, to redeem them of course! I've done it a few times, in two cases I had diplomacy'd evil NPC's to be my followers and lead them on their paths of penance, and in others they were PC's.


This actually happened to me my first ever game, but we just got over it because we were all good friends.

Keltest
2017-02-23, 09:19 AM
I think that DM should ban Evil PC unless they got a logical and reasonable explanation that they should allow evil PC in the game. :annoyed:

Honestly, evil people aren't any more likely to betray the party than any other alignment. Evil people can have friends and be generally nice people. There usually isn't anything in it for them to betray the party, at least not that would outweigh the long term benefits of continued membership.

S@tanicoaldo
2017-02-23, 09:27 AM
It's ok if you are playing Paranoia :p

Maybe after this game you guys could play a more competitive game? Since he seems to have the need to play as an evil guy and betray.

Red Fel
2017-02-23, 10:04 AM
Hi there, villain here. A few points.

On the issue of whether to allow Evil PCs, it boils down to trust. Namely: Do you trust the player to play this character in such a way that everyone can have a good time? If the answer is yes, then Evil is just another item on the character sheet, like Warforged, or Five Foot Two, Eyes of Blue, or what-have-you; let them play. If the answer is no, then you're looking at an entirely separate issue - namely, whether your mistrust of this player is justified, and whether it extends beyond alignment.

Let's assume, for a moment, that you trust a player with Evil PCs. The next question: How do you react if - and let's be clear, it's an if, not a when - an Evil PC betrays the party? This breaks into two parts.

First, how does your PC react? The most probable answer: Badly. At best, they won't trust the Evil PC, and won't invite him back to the party. At worst, they'll be justified in straight-up trying to kill him. Naturally, justification plays a role - for example, if the Evil PC was fake betraying the party, and needed to make it look real, but ultimately ends up helping them in the long run, trust may still be hurt, but the guy might not be kill-on-sight. But generally? If a PC betrays the party, they have no obligation to keep him around anymore.

Second, how do you, as a player react? Well, the question there is much simpler: Was it fun? Did you enjoy the betrayal, or did it really mess the game up for you? If it was fun, you give the other player a pat on the back, tell him, "That was good, but don't do it again, okay?" and kill his PC. If it was bad, you give him the stink-eye, and whatever your preferred version of "What the actual crap, Reggie?" sounds like.

Betrayal of the party is a tricky thing. And while I advocate for playing fun, smart Evil PCs, I strongly advocate against betraying the party, unless you really know what you're doing, and the DM is on board, and you have a good relationship with the other players.

Sergio
2017-02-23, 10:09 AM
Honestly my dm always put it this way. It depends on the kind of betrayal: are you planning to become the protagonist? If so, my current dm will not abide to your wish. But if there is a reason, that compels the player character to act in such a way and not just the way to become the protagonist he will demolish each one of your attempts.

Example. I'm a chaotic evil character into a party made of good-aligned people. I have rules on the way I act and even if I sometimes step into the evil shoes when it is my advantage doing so, I avoid unless I see a big opportunity or I'm forced to do so because I got to live and I spare nothing on doing so.

We recently met a new person (whose name is laiomorn) that joined our party (currently we stayed together with him two hours at maximum, not including that we had to sleep and he slept with us), while we were travelling to a sacred place, which we discovered was corrupted by otherwordly being. While we are inside this big tree we met both a demon (Still trapped but asking us for help - he asked us to kill the trapped guardian of the grove) and the guardian of the grove himself, whose powers make players feel like insignificant mosquitos compared to him.

Still, my barbarian, a fist of the forest, thinks that the current guardian of the grove is a weak being, given that he was trapped and is asking us to help, while even I, I would have preferred death instead of asking other people that casually step into my room to help me.

We, as the party, decided to flee from this place, because if a demigod was unable to do what needed to be done, we can't do anything either. But as we tried to escape, we were ambushed. The cleric in my party decided from nothing to stop healing me and is leaving me wounded each time we face a new challenge, even if I died almost non-stop in the course of two hours. When I was sick of him and wounded, I asked him once again for help but he denied me. I set so my new course, I didn't attack anyone but I decided to go to the demon to ask him for help because I was dieing. While going through the ladders, the new entry (laiomorn), given that I pushed the cleric to the wall, because he kept denieing my wishes to be both healed and both to hear me (I DIDN'T ATTACK HIM), decided to cast a spell on me and damaged me and put me almost to the brink of death.
But the owner of Laiomorn metagamed. Because he listened to what I said to my dm and he sets the course of attacking me even if a bit of time before actually laiomorn asked me to guard the guardian. thus, the attack was unconceivable and not justificable.

Thus, when the rage of my barbarian expired, I couldn't either ask the demon for help, and neither I was healed by the cleric, so in a burst of rage I screamed that I would have killed them both given the chance because they were the reason that I was currently in that shape.

I was -8 hp, waiting for the next session. I asked my dm to give me a chance to become the new guardian of the grove and at the beginnning he denied me, told me I couldn't become the protagonist. I asked him what he thought I would do with such a power and he thgought I would kill the cleric and maybe all the other people. But my character is not that mad with the cleric, he just doesn't trust him anymore. But wants revenge. And if the dm complies, and I will become the guardian of the sacred place, I will kill laiomorn.

But no one else. As of me, I can't bear the thought of someone joining me and my party, and actually stabbing me with a spell without the reason of doing so.


So, I will kill Laiomorn given the chance and I will become the new guardian of the sacred place, but I won't ruin the fun of others. They all proved their purpose, apart from LAIOMORN, who stabbed me

Zanos
2017-02-23, 10:19 AM
What Rethorb said. If you're playing Vampire or something, evil PCs betraying each other is part of the premise and should be expected.
It basically is the premise half the time. If every PC isn't running thirty different schemes behind everyone else's back something funky's going on. Although it gets weird when it turns out the dramatic party betrayer is actually the person doing the right thing, like being the only person who wants to destroy a torpid Methuselah because it's basically a walking nuke. Happened to me. Protip: just because an Elder is nice to you does not mean you should hand them the power to literally time travel.

Now, assuming you're playing a more traditional RPG, they tend to be based on cooperation. Much of the game is built on the assumption that the party will generally work together, although they may have friction and disagree at times. I don't mind characters from the southern end of the alignment pool in my regular games, to a degree. Playing a ruthless jerk who fights fire with fire can certainly be fun, and being the token Evil teammate who does what must be done is a good time. Heck, even Evil characters who are just in it for the money and power can be kept on track. But if your character concept is "insane cannibal", "psychotic murderer" or "actually a Doombot the entire time", it's probably not gonna fly. Making a character with the express purpose of screwing over the group is not something that I allow, and trying to do it behind my back is a great way to get kicked out of my games.

I'll also add that part of this is handwavium. When you allow undercover agents for the bad guys into your game, getting the PCs together to begin with is extraordinarily difficult. I started using dominate person/probe thoughts on all new characters to force them to tell the truth after we had a traitor in one game I was in, and getting a session going after someone rolled a new character was pretty torturous, figuratively and sort of literally.

Bogwoppit
2017-02-23, 10:23 AM
It totally depends on whether there's fun to be had in playing out the betrayal.

Lots of people don't like playing through an imposed adversity when they spent ages getting their character to be so awesome - but sometimes, it can be fun to play through. I guess it helps if you know the GM is going to give you back your same level of awesome at the end of the adventure.

Quertus
2017-02-23, 11:59 AM
Hey everyone. I thought of something. If you have one member of the team is evil good (doesn't matter if it's LE, NE or CELG, NG or CG.) and you really trust that PC but then he or she betray your team and the outcome turns very bad for everybody. How will you handled this betrayal from an EvilGood PC?

FTFY.


Honestly, evil people aren't any more likely to betray the party than any other alignment. Evil people can have friends and be generally nice people. There usually isn't anything in it for them to betray the party, at least not that would outweigh the long term benefits of continued membership.

This.

Good characters have morals. When you oppose those morals, they oppose you, often violently. Especially in D&D.

Evil characters have no - or, at least, fewer - such morals to cause intra-party conflict. Evil characters are no more likely - and, in fact, probably less likely - to act against or betray the party than good characters.

Really, I should be banned from playing good characters (especially paladins*), and probably required to play evil characters by those who care about party cooperation.

Now, as to your question of how to handle betrayal... Mercilessly. Become evil yourself, and give them the cruelest fate imaginable. Strike that - the third cruelest fate imaginable, so that no one ever dares betray you again, lest they find out what could possibly be worse than what you did to the last guy.

No, really, it depends on the group and the game. The question you need to ask yourself is, is there a(n unspoken) social contract which the player in question has violated? If so, you need to address this issue. If not, do you need one, or is it all fun and games?

* A Real Paladin walks into town. Detect Evil. Round one: ding. The Real Paladin slaughters the whole town. Reason? They were allowing evil in their midst.

CharonsHelper
2017-02-23, 12:05 PM
* A Really really stupid & insane Paladin walks into town. Detect Evil. Round one: ding. The Really really stupid & insane Paladin slaughters the whole town. Reason? They were allowing evil in their midst.

Got that for you.

Koo Rehtorb
2017-02-23, 12:19 PM
* A Real Paladin walks into town. Detect Evil. Round one: ding. The Real Paladin slaughters the whole town. Reason? They were allowing evil in their midst.

Dogs in the Vineyard.

Quertus
2017-02-23, 01:23 PM
Got that for you.

Well, the logic is, a paladin is forbidden to associate with evil. Therefore, associating with evil is evil. The paladin is given tools to locate evil (Detect Evil). A town has tools (Sense Motive, Aid Another) to root out the evil in their midst. Not using those tools, and associating with evil, is, as mentioned, an evil act. Most (idiot) DMs I've had have characters fall - straight to evil! - for committing a single evil act. Thus, if they haven't rooted the evil out of their midst, the whole town is evil. And therefore need to be slaughtered, just like goblins, per Murder Hobo logic, let alone the Paladin's "superior", less tolerant code.

It makes much more sense than most of the GMs I've gamed with. :smallfrown:

But, really, that section was intended more for humor value than for a serious discussion of the logical consequences of D&D alignment.

Honest Tiefling
2017-02-23, 01:33 PM
I think that DM should ban Evil PC unless they got a logical and reasonable explanation that they should allow evil PC in the game. :annoyed:

No, if you don't want PvP, make it a rule ahead of time. You shouldn't assume that everyone plays the game in the same way, so some people might enjoy the PvP aspect. Others feel that their character is somewhere on the anti-villian/anti-hero spectrum and evil might be the way to go, but they have no particular reason to betray the party. Heck, they might be enjoying the idea of an evil character being redeemed by a good aligned one in the party.

Evil characters aren't the problem, but a lack of communication is. Communication will also help reveal trolls before they become a lot of trouble to eject from the group.

Don't blame people who play evil characters. Blame people who don't COMMUNICATE.

Jay R
2017-02-23, 01:43 PM
* A Real Paladin walks into town. Detect Evil. Round one: ding. The Real Paladin slaughters the whole town. Reason? They were allowing evil in their midst.

He is no longer Lawful, no longer good, and no longer a paladin. This is multiple counts of murder.

Now, with a competent DM, he was told the consequences of his action before it took place. But whether that step occurred or not, if a DM allows a mass murderer to remain a paladin, I will leave the game.

----------------

Getting back to the main point.

In many sports - American football, wrestling, boxing etc. - some participants are trying to knock down some other participant(s) with brute force. We all know how to handle that situation. But, and this is a crucial point, we all agreed to it when we started playing the game. If somebody starts trying to knock me down with brute force at any other time, it is clearly inappropriate behavior.

Similarly, in almost any non-role-playing game - Monopoly, Chess, Risk, Catan, Battleship, etc. - each player is working against each other player. We all know how to handle that situation. But, and this is a crucial point, we all agreed to it when we sat down. If somebody starts trying to work against me at any other time, it is clearly inappropriate behavior.

In D&D, have we agreed to play a game in which no player tries to work against any other player? The unfortunate answer is that we have usually not even considered the question, and most players came into the game with the unconscious assumptions of previous games. And in some of those games, the possibility of working against other players was perfectly normal.

So don't assume that the DM or the other player have been jerks. Don't say it's "not part of the game"; it's been part of the game for over 40 years. Say that you and the other players who agree with you don't want to play that way, and work out how the game will be played from then on. That might mean the other player agreeing not to attack the party, or you agreeing to watch your back, or the other player leaving the group, or you leaving the group.

PvP has been part of D&D forever, and probably always will be. And there will always be players who assume that's the normal way to play. They are on guard against treachery from you, and are willing, if the situation is right, to betray you in turn. These are not horrible people who don't know how to play; they are perfectly normal people who learned to play that way, no different from trying to bankrupt the other players in Monopoly.

You are more likely to fix the problem by treating it as a different way of playing that you don't like than by portraying them as jerks or bad players. I recommend that you discuss playing styles before the game begins any time you start a game with strangers.

CharonsHelper
2017-02-23, 02:27 PM
Well, the logic is, a paladin is forbidden to associate with evil. Therefore, associating with evil is evil. The paladin is given tools to locate evil (Detect Evil). A town has tools (Sense Motive, Aid Another) to root out the evil in their midst. Not using those tools, and associating with evil, is, as mentioned, an evil act. Most (idiot) DMs I've had have characters fall - straight to evil! - for committing a single evil act. Thus, if they haven't rooted the evil out of their midst, the whole town is evil. And therefore need to be slaughtered, just like goblins, per Murder Hobo logic, let alone the Paladin's "superior", less tolerant code.

It makes much more sense than most of the GMs I've gamed with. :smallfrown:

But, really, that section was intended more for humor value than for a serious discussion of the logical consequences of D&D alignment.

Well - that's all sorts of bad logic. (Mainly "Therefore, associating with evil is evil.")

Not that I doubt you've had GMs with bad logic.

veti
2017-02-23, 02:30 PM
It's ok if you are playing Paranoia :p

No, it's not. The scenario specified "you really trust that PC".

If anyone "really trusts" another PC in a game of Paranoia, they have already made a terrible mistake.


Well, the logic is, a paladin is forbidden to associate with evil. Therefore, associating with evil is evil. The paladin is given tools to locate evil (Detect Evil). A town has tools (Sense Motive, Aid Another) to root out the evil in their midst. Not using those tools, and associating with evil, is, as mentioned, an evil act. Most (idiot) DMs I've had have characters fall - straight to evil! - for committing a single evil act. Thus, if they haven't rooted the evil out of their midst, the whole town is evil. And therefore need to be slaughtered, just like goblins, per Murder Hobo logic, let alone the Paladin's "superior", less tolerant code.

Yeah... I'm gonna go with the group on this one. Your logic is not like our Earth logic. (Starting with "if a paladin is forbidden to do it, it must be evil", and continuing through "characters fall straight to evil for committing a single evil act", and finishing with "therefore need to be slaughtered, just like goblins [which is a whole other can of worms in its own right]".

The DMs you've played with should not be allowed near alignment systems of any sort, let alone paladins.

Aneurin
2017-02-23, 02:33 PM
It depends a lot.

I mean, betraying the party isn't really something I'd do with my characters unless I a.) knew the group well, trusted them and knew they trusted me to make decisions that increases everyone's fun, b.) knew the GM well and talked it over ahead of time, c.) knew it fit the game in question and d.) could do it in a way that the other characters might see coming and be able to prevent, or at least defend themselves effectively against depending what form it took.

As a GM I'd pretty much have the same requirements of any player who pitched the idea to me. But I'm not going to say "always terrible" or "always awesome" because they can be awesome, and they can be terrible. Or they could be indifferent. It depends on so many things - though I'm inclined to say in-character betrayals are a pretty poor idea in dungeoncrawlers, because they're based around the premise that the party will work optimally together to kill things and take their stuff and tend to be light on the character development that actually makes betrayals interesting to do/experience.


Though, reading this thread, I'm noticing that maybe two separate issues are being conflated.

1.) In-character betrayals
2.) "Evil" characters in parties.

They're not really related, since the moral attitudes of a character don't actually have the slightest effect on how likely the character is to commit a betrayal. Why? Because the character doesn't decide what they do, the player does. Yes, people sometimes use alignment in D&D-esque systems, or general morality in non D&D-esque games, as an excuse for a betrayal, but ultimately the player has still decided to make it happen and could have chosen otherwise.

On top of that... I think that, generally, I've seen more betrayals by characters who profess to be (or their players profess are) honourable. It's just that, quite often, they don't look like betrayals.

Typically the situation runs something like this:

Player: "Uh-oh, we're outnumbered and outgunned - we need to retreat!"
Sir Honour: "No, my character wouldn't do this! Because honour!"
Player: "But we have no chance of winning this, at all, but if we just fell back to a more defensible position..."
Sir Honour: "No! Honour! Retreating is dishonourable!"
Player: "So... we either have to leave you to die, or we all get killed?"
Sir Honour: "Yep. But you'd all be jerks for just abandoning my character,"

Alternatively:

Player: "Okay, so I think this person might be a bad guy, but they're really powerful. Maybe we should just accept their job offer-we-can't-refuse for now, and figure out how to escape later..."
Sir Honour: "No, that is dishonourable! We must attack!"
Player: "What? But that's tantamount to suicide!"
Sir Honour: "But it is honourable! I charge!"
Player: "But the rest of us don't want to fight!"
Sir Honour: "I still charge!"


On the surface, both seem to be roleplaying, but given the massively detrimental effects on the party that both situations have they're very much betrayals since the player's decision-making is entirely unilateral. They player could easily have compromised and retreated and then, enhanced their roleplaying and possibly the group's collective experience, by having their character get mopey about having acted in a way they feel is dishonourable, and seeking redeption through later excessively honourable acts that are not so lethally detrimental to the entire rest of the party.

I've run across both situations in games. They suck lots. Lots and lots and lots.

There's similarly nothing stopping the holier-than-thou priest swiping the party's money in the night and giving it all to an orphanage. Betrayal, and no (or at least arguable) moral shadiness because those orphans clearly needed the cash more than a party whose gear could buy a couple of cities if they sold it. The character has clung to morality as an excuse for harming the party.



I'm not going to go into the second point ("Evil" characters in parties) since I refuse to use any system that makes me define my character in D&D morality terms for a lot of reasons.

Yora
2017-02-23, 02:34 PM
I don't keep anyone from doing it but I immediately tell the other players that they should regard that character as an enemy and at the very least chase him from the party. And killing him is totally an option if they feel like because after he's splits off from the party he's going to be an NPC anyway.
I'm not going to run separate adventures for such characters.

Satinavian
2017-02-23, 02:43 PM
Well, the logic is, a paladin is forbidden to associate with evil. Therefore, associating with evil is evil. The paladin is given tools to locate evil (Detect Evil). A town has tools (Sense Motive, Aid Another) to root out the evil in their midst. Not using those tools, and associating with evil, is, as mentioned, an evil act. Most (idiot) DMs I've had have characters fall - straight to evil! - for committing a single evil act. Thus, if they haven't rooted the evil out of their midst, the whole town is evil. And therefore need to be slaughtered, just like goblins, per Murder Hobo logic, let alone the Paladin's "superior", less tolerant code.

It makes much more sense than most of the GMs I've gamed with. :smallfrown:

But, really, that section was intended more for humor value than for a serious discussion of the logical consequences of D&D alignment.
Associating with evil might be forbidden to certain paladins, but is not in itself an evil act (and associating with good is not a good act.)

I know you were not really serious, but i still had to point that out.

@ topic

I have no problem with evil PCs, but i don't like inner-party betrayal. D&D likes tough fights of the whole group against something. A betrayal during such a fight is nearly a guaranteed win for the betrayer. A party with trust issues can't rist getting into such fights. Therefore either betrayals are extremely unlikely, maybe even forbidden or you can't have a normal adventure with normal challanges. If you need to metagame to avoid betrayal, you should do it.

But yes, there are limits. Most of the D&D-groups i was in did allow PvP. In most groups it never actually happened.

One group had an inner party betrayal in a tough fight near the campaign end. And it was not really bad. It was foreshadowed and it was In-Charater. People did not see it coming but afterwards agreed that they should have seen it. (It was also only half successful, but i don't think that mattered too much). So yes, even such a betrayal is not neccessarily bad. Only nearly always.

Lord Torath
2017-02-23, 03:36 PM
I still love the story I read (somewhere on these boards) where the BBEG had the party relatively in his power, and offered them the chance to join him. One PC took him up on his offer, the rest fled. Next portion of the campaign was split, with the Traitor working with the BBEG, and the rest of the party trying to thwart them. Cue the Grand Confrontation: The Traitor and BBEG are at the top of a dais in the Great Hall, with the party looking up from the bottom of a long staircase. BBEG begins his monologue. Traitor interrupts him by tripping him and shoving him down the stairs, where he lands prone in the middle of the party. One round later he's dead, and the Traitor says something along the lines of "You didn't really think I'd go along with him, did you? I've got all the details; let's take this evil organization down!"

Not really a betrayal, though. Even when the traitor first accepted the offer, he didn't instantly turn on the group, or (figuratively or literally) backstab them. He said outright, "From here on out I'll be working against you." An open declaration. No pretending to help while really working against them.

daniel_ream
2017-02-23, 11:47 PM
There's similarly nothing stopping the holier-than-thou priest swiping the party's money in the night and giving it all to an orphanage. Betrayal, and no (or at least arguable) moral shadiness because those orphans clearly needed the cash more than a party whose gear could buy a couple of cities if they sold it. The character has clung to morality as an excuse for harming the party.

Any moral system that includes charity is likely also going to include some form of stricture against stealing.

I tend to think that the biggest problem with morality dilemmas in RPGs is that the overwhelming majority of gamers are secular modernists and tend not to think of the fairly mundane solutions of praying for guidance or checking with the local holy book and/or priest of their god for what counts as moral behaviour. Even in sword & sorcery heroic fantasy like the Conan or Zothique stories, gods existed and had Strong Opinions on how people who purported to be their followers ought to behave. Any functional real-world religion is going to have worked out the "correct" answer to questions like "is it okay to steal from unbelievers to give charity to minor children"; a coherent fantasy religion also ought to have, and one would assume that the rest of the PCs would be aware they were travelling with someone who didn't think mores about personal property applied to them as infidels.

For that matter, take religion out of it; law codes that define what is and is not moral go back before Hammurabi. But then most fantasy campaigns give the local common law about as much consideration as canon law.

Satinavian
2017-02-24, 02:38 AM
For that matter, take religion out of it; law codes that define what is and is not moral go back before Hammurabi. But then most fantasy campaigns give the local common law about as much consideration as canon law.Don't know. I am playing regularly in campaigns where people give those a lot of consideration. All those court battles and legal arguments. And there are also a lot of not so generic fantasy RPGs with lots of legal stuff in the campaign world supplements.

There are fantasy RPGs out there where "legal advocate" is a valid character concept on par with "fighter". Those games are obviously not D&D. But i have a couple of times tried D&D variants in groups which before played those other, background-obsessed games and it didn't really work because the players always tried to understand how D&D settings and the societies therin could make any sense (instead of shutting up, slaying the monsters and taking their stuff)

Cozzer
2017-02-24, 03:22 AM
For that matter, take religion out of it; law codes that define what is and is not moral go back before Hammurabi. But then most fantasy campaigns give the local common law about as much consideration as canon law.

I think that's mainly a consequence of the "authorities are completely useless so that the main characters can feel like they're alone in their fight" trope. After a couple dozen of stories where the only role law enforcement plays is to either be corrupt or to make wrong choices until the main characters say 'screw it, we'll take care of this ourselves', it's pretty easy to take that mentality as the default. :smalltongue:

Zombimode
2017-02-24, 04:41 AM
But i have a couple of times tried D&D variants in groups which before played those other, background-obsessed games and it didn't really work because the players always tried to understand how D&D settings and the societies therin could make any sense (instead of shutting up, slaying the monsters and taking their stuff)

You are aware that this is entirely the fault of the setting and not connected to the ruleset?
As for published settings Eberron works pretty well and this is the Setting that embraces D&D 3.5 to its fullest.
So yeah, an DM fault.

Satinavian
2017-02-24, 08:17 AM
That would be a valid argument if we had used private settings, but we did use official ones. Yes, Eberron is one of better ones. But it is still far away from the level of detail or consistency the settings of certain other systems provide.

And yes, i do blame D&D itself here. Thousands of monster types but how the existence of such monsters influences societies as an afterthought at best. Detailed guidelines about which kind of adventuring magic items should be available where but nearly nothing about societies and laws in the worldbuilding sections. Vast lists of combat related dpells including pricelists for casting stuff, but nothing about pseudomedieval settings and magic fit together and influence each other. The setting books go slightly deeper into it, but it is still extremely shallow compared to settings of other systems.

I am not saying that D&D is bad. There are ertain things it does pretty well, otherwise i wouldn't play it. But "providing rules and settings for detailed deep immersion games" is not on that list. Neither is amount of disinterest it shows to all topics that have nothing to do with monsters, fighting or treasure typical for all RGPs.

Quertus
2017-02-24, 08:48 AM
He is no longer Lawful, no longer good, and no longer a paladin. This is multiple counts of murder.

And, for consistency, someone who has murdered countless sentient goblins / ogres drow / dragons / demons / far spawn is also no longer lawful or good?

My lunatic homicide paladin is simply the logical conclusion of some of the horrible alignment rules rulings I've encountered (yes, that includes paladin's code == good). If he wouldn't make sense in your (plural) games, that's y'all's good.

EDIT: oh, and spot-on analysis of, to paraphrase, "what we sat down to play", and what that makes acceptable.


It depends a lot.

I mean, betraying the party isn't really something I'd do with my characters unless I a.) knew the group well, trusted them and knew they trusted me to make decisions that increases everyone's fun, b.) knew the GM well and talked it over ahead of time, c.) knew it fit the game in question and d.) could do it in a way that the other characters might see coming and be able to prevent, or at least defend themselves effectively against depending what form it took.

As a GM I'd pretty much have the same requirements of any player who pitched the idea to me. But I'm not going to say "always terrible" or "always awesome" because they can be awesome, and they can be terrible. Or they could be indifferent. It depends on so many things - though I'm inclined to say in-character betrayals are a pretty poor idea in dungeoncrawlers, because they're based around the premise that the party will work optimally together to kill things and take their stuff and tend to be light on the character development that actually makes betrayals interesting to do/experience.

Typically the situation runs something like this:

Player: "Uh-oh, we're outnumbered and outgunned - we need to retreat!"
Sir Honour: "No, my character wouldn't do this! Because honour!"
Player: "But we have no chance of winning this, at all, but if we just fell back to a more defensible position..."
Sir Honour: "No! Honour! Retreating is dishonourable!"
Player: "So... we either have to leave you to die, or we all get killed?"
Sir Honour: "Yep. But you'd all be jerks for just abandoning my character,"

Alternatively:

Player: "Okay, so I think this person might be a bad guy, but they're really powerful. Maybe we should just accept their job offer-we-can't-refuse for now, and figure out how to escape later..."
Sir Honour: "No, that is dishonourable! We must attack!"
Player: "What? But that's tantamount to suicide!"
Sir Honour: "But it is honourable! I charge!"
Player: "But the rest of us don't want to fight!"
Sir Honour: "I still charge!"


On the surface, both seem to be roleplaying, but given the massively detrimental effects on the party that both situations have they're very much betrayals since the player's decision-making is entirely unilateral. They player could easily have compromised and retreated and then, enhanced their roleplaying and possibly the group's collective experience, by having their character get mopey about having acted in a way they feel is dishonourable, and seeking redeption through later excessively honourable acts that are not so lethally detrimental to the entire rest of the party.

I've run across both situations in games. They suck lots. Lots and lots and lots.

There's similarly nothing stopping the holier-than-thou priest swiping the party's money in the night and giving it all to an orphanage. Betrayal, and no (or at least arguable) moral shadiness because those orphans clearly needed the cash more than a party whose gear could buy a couple of cities if they sold it. The character has clung to morality as an excuse for harming the party.

Hmmm... I've never seen betrayal make for a good story, but conflict can. We can ambush the villain... Oh, wait, the knight is honorable. Ok... We can beat him to the port... Oh, wait, the dwarf is afraid of water. Ok, we can get horses and... and sell them later to raise money for the orphanage, sure.

So long as you don't have "my way or nothing", it can make for a fun logic puzzle in the planning stage.

Zombimode
2017-02-24, 10:30 AM
That would be a valid argument if we had used private settings, but we did use official ones. Yes, Eberron is one of better ones. But it is still far away from the level of detail or consistency the settings of certain other systems provide.

Tangent:

Actually my point is that this is entirely dependent on the setting. That you didn't have much success with the published D&D settings may be a failure of those Settings - it doesn't say anything about the rules per se.


And yes, i do blame D&D itself here. Thousands of monster types but how the existence of such monsters influences societies as an afterthought at best.

The Monster Manual provide the stats. What you do with them is up to you. What Kind of creatures exist and interact which eachother is setting-dependent.


Detailed guidelines about which kind of adventuring magic items should be available where but nearly nothing about societies and laws in the worldbuilding sections.

Yes, because those things are setting dependent.


Vast lists of combat related dpells including pricelists for casting stuff, but nothing about pseudomedieval settings and magic fit together and influence each other.

Because it is (you guessed it) setting dependent.


The setting books go slightly deeper into it, but it is still extremely shallow compared to settings of other systems.

That may be true but has nothing to do with the system.


I am not saying that D&D is bad. There are ertain things it does pretty well, otherwise i wouldn't play it. But "providing rules and settings for detailed deep immersion games" is not on that list. Neither is amount of disinterest it shows to all topics that have nothing to do with monsters, fighting or treasure typical for all RGPs.

I agree with you in one Thing: D&D 3.5 (likely applies to other editions) does a poor job explaining how to use the rule to achieve what you want.
What I disagree (vehemently!) with is the notion that the rules by themselves somehow make "detailed deep immersion games" difficult or even impossible.
Because detailed immervive games are what I strive for and D&D 3.5 is my system of choice for most of my games (and has been for many many years now). Using other Systems I felt no difference in setting creation.

Yes, I had my fair share of Players proclaiming at some Point that such and such doesen't make sense.
Sometimes, they are right.

More often, though, the preceived inconsistency are the result of:

- a misjudgement for the Player (but lets ignore those for the moment)

- a misunderstood part of the rules or simply ignorance for other parts of the rules: from a limited and/or faulty perspective things will appear differently.
Example: "Why is not everyone a Wizard?" This is a misunderstanding of what PC-Classes represent and that taking levels in classes for player characters is a metagame abstraction and after-the-fact explanation, as well as ignorance to those parts of the rulebooks that actually answer this question.

- a faulty set of assumptions: the player makes a set of assumptions about the setting that contratict the information given and then perceives something in the setting that goes against this set of assumptions and instead of reviewing the assumptions proclaims a consistancy problem with the setting.
Example: "With the existence of the spell Create Food and Water how can it be that hunger is still a problem?" Lets assume that is was previously established that hunger is, indeed, a problem. There are still a whole lot of assumptions that have to be true, for instance the existence of a large enough number of spellcasters both cabable and willing to cast this spell for the benefit of the greater populace.
The Giant once made a fitting remark concerning this topic. It was in response to people pointing out "errors" in his story.


But ignoring all this, the property of internal consistancy is far less important the a specific players ability to immerse themselves into a setting then you might think.
Far, FAR more important is if the player likes the setting or not.
People can immerse themselves in the most stupid of settings and feel totally unengaged by settings that mirror the Earth.

People praise Creation, the setting for Exalted, as a very deep and immersive one.
But from what I've read about it, I find it utterly pointless and boring.
No matter how internally consitant it may be, I could not immerse myself into it because I just don't like it.

Jay R
2017-02-24, 12:44 PM
And, for consistency, someone who has murdered countless sentient goblins / ogres drow / dragons / demons / far spawn is also no longer lawful or good?

Murdered them? Yes, of course. Killed them in self defense, or continuation of a long war, to rescue their prisoners, or to stop raiders, no.

Picking random people to kill them and take their stuff is not only clearly murder and robbery, but also the least interesting form of D&D adventure.


My lunatic homicide paladin is simply the logical conclusion of some of the horrible alignment rules rulings I've encountered (yes, that includes paladin's code == good). If he wouldn't make sense in your (plural) games, that's y'all's good.

I agree completely - your proposed paladin's behavior is the extension of something horrible.

One of the biggest risks in playing a paladin is that you are at the mercy of what a DM considers to be good. I would never play a paladin under a DM unless I fully trust his or her understanding of morality.


EDIT: oh, and spot-on analysis of, to paraphrase, "what we sat down to play", and what that makes acceptable.

Thank you. A D&D game is a co-operative venture. That doesn't mean it can't include player-vs.-player. It does mean that we have to agree on what it includes.

Lacuna Caster
2017-03-05, 07:21 AM
Dogs in the Vineyard.
Do the Dogs actually get Detect Evil, though?


Good characters have morals. When you oppose those morals, they oppose you, often violently. Especially in D&D.

Evil characters have no - or, at least, fewer - such morals to cause intra-party conflict.
"Don't betray your comrades" is a moral inhibition. If you can rely purely on self-interest to ensure that PCs don't screw eachother, you're probably dealing with unequivocally and relentlessly hostile NPC opposition that affords scant opportunity for profitable backstabbing. Which describes a great many dungeon crawls, granted, but under those circumstances the good PCs are hardly more likely to be a problem.

Kish
2017-03-05, 07:28 AM
Quertus is literally describing one of the lords of Ravenloft with their concept of "how I automatically play a paladin."

Lacuna Caster
2017-03-05, 07:32 AM
And, for consistency, someone who has murdered countless sentient goblins / ogres / drow / dragons / demons / far spawn is also no longer lawful or good?
If you want to argue that Detect Evil shouldn't exist as a game mechanic, fine, but if you accept the underlying metaphysics of the alignment system and if the spell is actually reliable, then Evil -> Needs Smiting is a perfectly valid conclusion. (To say nothing of how the vast majority of goblins, drow and demons will be actively trying to kill at the time you meet them.)


I've said it elsewhere, but the problems with the paladin are actually not a problem with the paladin- it's a problem with random and unplanned (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?517090-You-All-Meet-In-A-Tavern) chargen processes.


I keep running into role-playing advice for paladins (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDVl8XO9Q7U&t=11m18s) that has this lingering subtext of "here's how to artfully ignore, rationalise or compensate for the sociopathic crap your team-mates pull", and I really don't think this is any particular virtue except in the nachos-and-basements sense of not offending (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?156277-What-was-the-appeal-of-Miko/page8&p=8793194#post8793194) a 35-year-old retail salesman's delicate eggshell ego. I'll be the first to defend black-and-grey morality (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?510304-The-Stick-s-worst-blunder-vote-now!&p=21651354&viewfull=1#post21651354), but the paladin does exist to police others' conduct- that's why they have detect/smite evil- and overlooking it's taint among those closest to them is simple hypocrisy. If you don't want that hassle, either don't include them during chargen, or don't oblige the PCs to get along.

Refusing to tolerate moral compromise is not a problem with the paladin and it's not even a problem with the paladin player. It's a problem with a game system that has for decades assumed that disparate characters generated in isolation can and should be shoehorned into the same party with ultimately uniform goals, thence to hold hands and trip down the yellow brick road. D&D has never supported real protagonism particularly well, but if it did, I would say that playing a character with an unbending sense of right is a perfectly valid role-playing choice, and there is no good reason why it should be marginalised in favour of Stabby McBabySteaks.

Quertus
2017-03-05, 09:18 AM
Quertus is literally describing one of the lords of Ravenloft with their concept of "how I automatically play a paladin."

Cool. Is he a paladin?

Jay R
2017-03-05, 04:28 PM
If you want to argue that Detect Evil shouldn't exist as a game mechanic, fine, but if you accept the underlying metaphysics of the alignment system and if the spell is actually reliable, then Evil -> Needs Smiting is a perfectly valid conclusion.

No.
It.
Isn't.

The person who hasn't broken any laws can't be arrested for being evil. Smiting him is even worse.

Some Evil people will never break a law because they are afraid of the consequences. This doesn't make them Good, or even Neutral. It makes them cautious.

Even if he has broken laws, there are lots of laws that don't carry the death penalty.

The correct conclusion, if conclusion you must have, is Evil -> Bears Watching.

[The mere fact that "can't associate with Evil" is a paladin-specific class trait is proof to any clear-thinking paladin that people who are not paladins can associate with Evil.]

Quertus
2017-03-05, 06:11 PM
No.
It.
Isn't.

The person who hasn't broken any laws can't be arrested for being evil. Smiting him is even worse.

Some Evil people will never break a law because they are afraid of the consequences. This doesn't make them Good, or even Neutral. It makes them cautious.

Even if he has broken laws, there are lots of laws that don't carry the death penalty.

The correct conclusion, if conclusion you must have, is Evil -> Bears Watching.

[The mere fact that "can't associate with Evil" is a paladin-specific class trait is proof to any clear-thinking paladin that people who are not paladins can associate with Evil.]

And... do you think that whether or not one obeys the law is the measure of the worth of a man? That every tyrant who makes the laws is inherently a saint?

I don't think a reasonable argument can be made regarding comparing how many laws one has broken to how deserving of death they are. Which laws, maybe. But equating chaotic to "deserves to die" seems at least as extreme as the position you're arguing against, don'tcha think?

Especially in D&D, where some paladin advice includes law-breaking.

Kish
2017-03-05, 06:13 PM
Cool. Is he a paladin?
She thinks she is. And she was once.

Of course she's Lawful Evil, not Lawful Good.

veti
2017-03-05, 07:42 PM
And... do you think that whether or not one obeys the law is the measure of the worth of a man? That every tyrant who makes the laws is inherently a saint?

I don't think a reasonable argument can be made regarding comparing how many laws one has broken to how deserving of death they are. Which laws, maybe. But equating chaotic to "deserves to die" seems at least as extreme as the position you're arguing against, don'tcha think?

Especially in D&D, where some paladin advice includes law-breaking.

While I can't speak for Jay, I suspect that for "breaks laws" you could substitute "done evil stuff". Based on the theory that you can be evil without having done anything particularly evil, whether through lack of opportunity or whatever.

If you genuinely play a paladin on the basis that "evil == needs killing immediately", you would very shortly find yourself outlawed, exiled, hunted by multiple non-evil agencies and bounty hunters, and generally facing a choice between "fighting non-evil people" and "going to jail if you're lucky, or more likely execution". It's not a viable way to play.

Mr Beer
2017-03-05, 07:46 PM
It depends but if the betrayal is random jerkassery, I would either leave the group or have my character murder their character at the first opportunity.

Jay R
2017-03-05, 10:01 PM
And... do you think that whether or not one obeys the law is the measure of the worth of a man? That every tyrant who makes the laws is inherently a saint?

Of course not, and I haven't said a single thing whatsoever about the worth of a man, or what makes a saint. I have made no statement whatsoever about tyrants. Don't change the subject.

I was talking about when it is all right for a paladin to decide somebody Needs Smiting. Somebody had said that "Evil -> Needs Smiting is a perfectly valid conclusion." That is the only topic I commented on here. And an evil aura is not a valid reason. Only a person's actual deeds can justify attacking him.


I don't think a reasonable argument can be made regarding comparing how many laws one has broken to how deserving of death they are. Which laws, maybe.

Thank you for adding your support for my stated position, "Even if he has broken laws, there are lots of laws that don't carry the death penalty."


But equating chaotic to "deserves to die" seems at least as extreme as the position you're arguing against, don'tcha think?

Yes, of course. I don't know anybody silly enough to equate chaotic to "deserves to die". I certainly have never done so.

Alignment does not justify a paladin deciding to attack. Only somebody's actions can do that. That was my point from the start. You are certainly correct that applies equally to the alignment "chaotic" as to the alignment "evil".

Somehow you think you're disagreeing with me here, but I don't see it.


Especially in D&D, where some paladin advice includes law-breaking.

Freeing slaves, or defending people unfairly arrested, yes.

But smiting somebody without finding out if he's done anything wrong? No. Just no.

SirBellias
2017-03-05, 11:18 PM
I handle it by removing the concept of alignment entirely and explicitly telling everyone before we begin that tabletop role-playing implies playing characters. As long as there is an in character reason for it, it's fine. Funnily enough, half the party is insane in an evil way, and they're incredibly helpful for all that.

If any betrayals happen, the rest of the group A) sees it from a mile away and B) is usually pretty alright with it.

ShaneMRoth
2017-03-05, 11:27 PM
I'd hold the GM accountable. Nothing happens without GM's approval, even if the approval is tacit.

If there were enough players whom I trusted, I'd form a different game group with those players. Different night, different place. Just "forget" to invite the betrayal-prone player.

Pauly
2017-03-06, 08:36 AM
My experience with party betrayal is that it is usually to cover, or a result of weak storylines from the DM.

If the party is having fun and challenging adventures the issue of party betrayal just doesn't come uo

Lacuna Caster
2017-03-07, 10:35 AM
The person who hasn't broken any laws can't be arrested for being evil. Smiting him is even worse.
I'll concede that the terms and definitions included in the PHB leave this hopelessly fuzzy, but a lot of people seem to think you can earn an [Evil] tag by clipping coinage, having dirty thoughts, or kicking puppies now and then. I lean more toward the 'serial rapist', 'child slave merchant' or 'instigator of war-crimes' interpretation- i.e, you actually have to do unspeakable things on a fairly sustained scale before you show up on DE's radar.


I was talking about when it is all right for a paladin to decide somebody Needs Smiting. Somebody had said that "Evil -> Needs Smiting is a perfectly valid conclusion." That is the only topic I commented on here. And an evil aura is not a valid reason. Only a person's actual deeds can justify attacking him.
The only case I can think of where you can get an [Evil] tag without doing actual evil deeds is in the case of freshly-spawned demons and the like, who are so intrinsically hell-bent on doing wrong that again, expedited Smiting is justified.


While I can't speak for Jay, I suspect that for "breaks laws" you could substitute "done evil stuff". Based on the theory that you can be evil without having done anything particularly evil, whether through lack of opportunity or whatever.
Whereas I don't think that theory makes any particular sense. A character's alignment is their track record of moral and ethical behaviour- by which definition, Evil characters are more-or-less tautologically those who inflict enough suffering or destruction that the world is better off without them.

One can certainly discuss the pragmatics of working within or outside the system, with respect to evidence, trials, conviction and imprisonment, and moral/ethical judgements are sufficiently complex and relative that it seems strange to assume that the universe can just automagically know who is or isn't an upstanding fellow, but if you accept it, and if DE gives accurate readings, I don't think there's any way around the conclusion that a sufficient degree of throbbing malevolence -> needs to go down hard.

Segev
2017-03-07, 11:08 AM
People often forget that Paladins are not supposed to be Lawful Anal nor Stupid Good. They certainly aren't supposed to be Murderous Zealot.

They ARE supposed to be zealots, in that they have zeal. They are supposed to be good and compassionate, but unwilling to tolerate evil. They temper this all with lawful adherence to codes of honor and justice.

Yes, they know that Bob the Baker, because he detects as evil, must have some horrible secret, and be capable of horrific things. They will not willingly associate with Bob beyond the barest minimum necessary to do their jobs as paladins. But they're not going to terrorize the town by murdering Bob in sudden violence.

The paladins who recognize Bob's evil through their magical ability to sense it will watch him. Carefully. The nature of his evil is as yet unclear to them, and they must figure it out so they take appropriate action. If Bob is actually killing orphan children with poisoned bread he leaves in his dumpster out back for his own sick amusement, then they want to make sure to catch him at it and to put a stop to it. But if Bob is pinging on evildar because he's the high priest of a secret cult to a Demon of Corruption that dwells in the city's catacombs, they are well-served by having figured this out so they can take down the demon and its cult; hasty execution of Bob just because he pinged "evil" is not just unjust, but leaves the greater evil free and undiscovered.

And there is also the possibility that poor Bob is just carrying a family heirloom that happens to be a piece of jewelry passed down from his great-great-great-grandmother the tiefling sorceress-queen who used it as a torture implement as well as personal adornment. She was long-since overthrown, by her adventurer son no less, who kept it because, despite what she did with it...she was his mother and he loved her.

Or maybe Bob's been cursed by some malignant Chaotic prankster to ping as Evil for no reason other than to mess with those who can sense it, and he's really a perfectly nice fellow who isn't even aware of his alignment aura.

So, no, a paladin will not kill somebody just because they ping. They'll absolutely act on it, but that act will be to watch them, maybe to distrust them. Not to kill them outright just for pinging.



As for betraying the team, one has to wonder why you'd assume an evil person would do it before any other alignment would. A good person might betray the team when that team makes an evil choice he feels morally obligated to thwart. A lawful person might betray the team when they break the law and enact a scheme to get away with it, feeling it only just to turn them in. A chaotic person might betray the team when he chafes too much at the things they do and the limitations they place on him, and it's the only way to regain his freedom.

An evil person should no more be inherently there to betray the team than anybody else. If he betrays the team, it probably has as much to do with the team's choices as his own, unless the player came in with a deliberate treacherous plan in mind. In which case that player is a jerk who could have come in with such treachery in mind no matter his PC's alignment.

Lacuna Caster
2017-03-07, 11:40 AM
But if Bob is pinging on evildar because he's the high priest of a secret cult to a Demon of Corruption that dwells in the city's catacombs, they are well-served by having figured this out so they can take down the demon and its cult; hasty execution of Bob just because he pinged "evil" is not just unjust, but leaves the greater evil free and undiscovered...

...And there is also the possibility that poor Bob is just carrying a family heirloom that happens to be a piece of jewelry passed down from his great-great-great-grandmother the tiefling sorceress-queen who used it as a torture implement as well as personal adornment...
Yes, but that implies DE isn't giving an accurate reading. Sure, if the instrument is faulty, you'll want to corroborate your findings with other lines of evidence, but those are just more elaborate methods of... well, detecting evil.

Not that I disagree with the track-down-the-wider-network-of-villainy angle, but after all your gumshoe work is done, you'll still have a bunch of rather nefarious individuals that need to be smote. That bit never goes away.


As for betraying the team, one has to wonder why you'd assume an evil person would do it before any other alignment would. A good person might betray the team when that team makes an evil choice he feels morally obligated to thwart...
Because evil is more-or-less defined by a disregard for the needs and wishes of other people. Your team-mates are other people. Evil characters can show selective loyalty to their allies, but evilness hardly improves the odds.

Segev
2017-03-07, 12:14 PM
Yes, but that implies DE isn't giving an accurate reading. Sure, if the instrument is faulty, you'll want to corroborate your findings with other lines of evidence, but those are just more elaborate methods of... well, detecting evil.The instrument can be fooled. It behooves you to be sure. If Bob is doing nothing wrong now, it doesn't matter that you have a nasty feeling about him; attacking him is wrong. Heck, he could be pinging because he'd been SUCH a paragon of good and virtue that, when that Apron of Opposite Alignment was slipped to him by a fey, he now pings horrifically evil. But he hasn't acted on it yet. Sure, he's got a big, scary plan...but it calls for some time spent lying low to keep up the goody two-shoes act, first.


Not that I disagree with the track-down-the-wider-network-of-villainy angle, but after all your gumshoe work is done, you'll still have a bunch of rather nefarious individuals that need to be smote. That bit never goes away.Nobody suggested it did. What was said was that "oh, Bob pings on evildar. Hang on while I kill him with extreme prejudice right this second" is problematic behavior. As is any form of "Bob pings, so he has to die with no further research into what he's done to deserve it."


Because evil is more-or-less defined by a disregard for the needs and wishes of other people. Your team-mates are other people. Evil characters can show selective loyalty to their allies, but evilness hardly improves the odds.Actually, Neutrality carries that disregard, too. LN cares more about the law than how others feel about it. CN cares more about personal freedom than about how others feel about your exercise thereof. TN cares more about number 1 than about the others (and just isn't willing to actively harm people irreparably and casually to take care of it).

Separating TN from NE just based on selfishness isn't going to work, as a general rule. TN will perform minor sacrifices of others for his own benefit. NE is willing to actively harm others without regard for their well-being at all. Both could betray the party. TN just has to rationalize why they deserved it or how they can afford whatever losses he inflicts in the process.

One way to tell a TN traitor from an NE traitor is how they react if the costs to those they betrayed suddenly get worse than anticipated. The TN guy will regret it and may even try to fix it. The NE guy...generally won't.

About the only alignments restricted from betrayal solely on the basis of caring how those betrayed will feel is the Good third of the grid, and even then, they have a tendency to feel like they're the ones who've been betrayed and they're just acting to thwart the treachery when they discover their (now former) allies doing something they can't condone nor be a part of. (Please note that this isn't a back-handed accusation against good people. They are generally RIGHT about it. Because they wouldn't have agreed to something they feel the need to thwart in the first place, so they DO rightfully feel betrayed if they discover their allies are into that sort of thing. But their erstwhile allies are going to see it as the good character betraying them, since he has suddenly turned on them after learning their plans.)

Koo Rehtorb
2017-03-07, 12:14 PM
I do think there's probably two valid interpretations of what "evil" means. Smiting is more aggressively justified if evil in the setting means actual evil instead of also including "very unpleasant" under the umbrella.

Zanos
2017-03-07, 12:42 PM
As a note, humans tend to no alignment in particularl and are equally represented in all of them, so a Paladin who kills on sight anyone on his evildar is going to be slaughtering 1/3rd of the population of anywhere he goes through.

I guess that's a lot of experience points.

But yeah, being Evil is not an automatic death sentence unless you're a Devil or something. Someone who pings Evil could easily be an Evil or even Neutral acolyte of one of the more tame Evil deities, or a merchant who traffics weapons or price gouges stuff to destitute people. You don't have to be a cackling psychotic murderer to be Evil. In fact Neutral is with many respects Good Minus in this regard, TN people act Good with respect to people they know and are generally just kind of ambivalent but not harmful to strangers. Finally, any Evil people haven't done anything illegal even within a legitimate LN or LG authority. Paladins are not above the law.

Jay R
2017-03-07, 12:46 PM
I'll concede that the terms and definitions included in the PHB leave this hopelessly fuzzy, but a lot of people seem to think you can earn an [Evil] tag by clipping coinage, having dirty thoughts, or kicking puppies now and then. I lean more toward the 'serial rapist', 'child slave merchant' or 'instigator of war-crimes' interpretation- i.e, you actually have to do unspeakable things on a fairly sustained scale before you show up on DE's radar.

OK, under your house rules, then, it might be possible to justify killing them. But not under the rules of D&D.

Besides, it's not enough for you to be sure somebody has done something horrible. You need to prove their guilt of a specific capital crime . Then you have to be authorized to be a judge, and then you have to be authorized to be an executioner.


The only case I can think of where you can get an [Evil] tag without doing actual evil deeds is in the case of freshly-spawned demons and the like, who are so intrinsically hell-bent on doing wrong that again, expedited Smiting is justified.

... or babies of any species tagged Evil.

Or a psychopath who has not committed his first crime, and might be redeemable.

... or a thief or robber who has committed no capital crimes.


Whereas I don't think that theory makes any particular sense. A character's alignment is their track record of moral and ethical behaviour- ...

That's an interesting idea, and I agree with a limited version of it in our world. But it's not a D&D rule, and it's not universally true enough that you'd kill somebody over it.

Suppose three people see somebody's wallet. The first one doesn't take it because it's not hers. The second won't take it because there are two witnesses, and he doesn't want to get caught. He would certainly have taken it if he were alone. The third one takes it. Your theory says that only the third one is evil. But I the second and the third are equally evil; they just aren't equally cautious.

Also, your idea is directly opposed to the rules of D&D in every edition I've played, in which baby goblins (for instance) are always or usually evil.


... by which definition, Evil characters are more-or-less tautologically those who inflict enough suffering or destruction that the world is better off without them.

There is no logical path from "the world would be better off without them" to "I am morally justified in murdering them."

For one thing, they may have just gotten out of prison for their crimes, in which case they cannot be punished further for them. They may have been pardoned. For another, remember that When Roy was wearing Xykon's crown, he registered as Evil to a paladin's senses.

For Gandalf's take on it:
“Deserves it! I daresay he does. Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement. For even the very wise cannot see all ends.”


One can certainly discuss the pragmatics of working within or outside the system, with respect to evidence, trials, conviction and imprisonment, and moral/ethical judgements are sufficiently complex and relative that it seems strange to assume that the universe can just automagically know who is or isn't an upstanding fellow, ...

I agree, by the way.


... but if you accept it, and if DE gives accurate readings, I don't think there's any way around the conclusion that a sufficient degree of throbbing malevolence -> needs to go down hard.

Detect Evil gives accurate readings (usually - see Roy, above). But it doesn't give different readings for "Evil, deserves the death penalty," and "Evil - deserves imprisonment" and "Evil - need to pay his debts."

If you go from "a sufficient degree of throbbing malevolence" to "needs to go down hard", while bypassing the "evidence, trials, conviction and imprisonment," then at the very least, you are not lawful, and are no longer a Paladin.

Besides, what is "sufficient evidence" for that purpose? A school bully is certainly evil, but shouldn't be murdered for it.

A "Detect Evil" spell cannot tell the difference between the evil people who should die, the evil people who should be locked up, the evil people who should be forced to pay back their unpaid loans, the evil people who should be grounded for a week, and the evil people who need to be given a time out.

So your "paladin" is murdering people who cheated on their income tax, or lied about who broke Mother's vase.

But that's assuming the D&D approach to evil, not yours. If criminals, gangsters, bullys, and liars don't register as evil, but only people who have committed crimes that warrant the death penalty in that jurisdiction, and they stop registering if they've been pardoned by the king or other authority, then you can kill people based on their aura.

But D&D rules for Detect Evil just don't work like that.

Segev
2017-03-07, 12:53 PM
It's even intentional that D&D's detect evil doesn't give ping ONLY on people who deserve instant slaying. On the one hand, it makes it so that it's a tool, but not a perfect one. It gives the Paladin an idea of who to keep a weather eye on. And a means of seeing where to look more deeply. But it doesn't give him a "solve the plot now" card.

On the other, it also makes it more useful. If detect evil couldn't pick up on the evil of the corrupt minister who worships a demon cult because it gets him political favors, because it's not "serial rapist child eating puppy kicker" evil, it couldn't clue him in that this minister is somebody he needs to be wary of and investigate further.

Zanos
2017-03-07, 01:04 PM
Detect Evil gives accurate readings (usually - see Roy, above). But it doesn't give different readings for "Evil, deserves the death penalty," and "Evil - deserves imprisonment" and "Evil - need to pay his debts."
Or the big one: "Evil - could be redeemed". That thing that Good and especially Paladins are supposed to be all about.

I also think that something somewhere says Paladins are supposed to attempt diplomacy first and violence later, but I forget where that's at.

Lacuna Caster
2017-03-07, 02:04 PM
I do think there's probably two valid interpretations of what "evil" means. Smiting is more aggressively justified if evil in the setting means actual evil instead of also including "very unpleasant" under the umbrella.
This. I can't imagine 33% of a population being capital-E Evil without that society self-destructing pretty quickly.


OK, under your house rules, then, it might be possible to justify killing them. But not under the rules of D&D.
I would actually say the rules of D&D were originally constructed for this exact purpose. The Good/Evil axis (well, originally Good/Chaotic) were introduced to provide a quick-and-easy labelling system for which dungeon-NPCs you were and weren't supposed to go carving up.

I can understand that various groups (and maybe editions) have drifted away from that core premise over the years, but while I consider DE to a rather reductive and simplistic way of handling complex questions of intent, consequence, foresight, social context, quality of evidence, mens rea, and the like, it's job is ultimately to be that simplistic and reductive solution. People try to find these elaborate justifications for treating it differently because they ultimately want to play a type of game that D&D doesn't natively support very well (or because the GM is actively trying to screw with you.)


EDIT: The points you raise about kobold babies and one-time offences and hungry bandits and the like don't really fit my definition, because again, I'm using capital-E Evil here: Repeated and deliberate acts of horrendous waste or cruelty. It's not about legality or punishment- it's about past performance being indicative of future returns, and minimising the risk of innocent people suffering before they can do more harm. You can talk about redemption if and only if they're under containment, which often takes a good deal of initial smiting. And sometimes that isn't practical.

Zanos
2017-03-07, 02:10 PM
This. I can't imagine 33% of a population being capital-E Evil without that society self-destructing pretty quickly.
There's evil(conventional usage) and Evil(what D&D means). You either want the first one or EVIL with big bold letters.

Well, yes, if you diverge from the book on what alignment actually means, then Paladins will have a different role. You'll have to tweak other stuff, because while 1/3rd of the population might be willing to harm others in order to advance themselves, 1/3rd of the population is definitely not eating babies. Those restaurants are private and simply can't hold that many people.

Lacuna Caster
2017-03-07, 03:36 PM
This is probably my fault for not explaining my reasoning more clearly to begin with, so I will agree that under the milder definitions of what pings with DE, one should certainly exercise more caution about the exercise of force. It would just never occur to me to describe a person as 'evil' for using corporal punishment, contemplating murder, or being born to the wrong parents.

Leaving aside the various edition wars, I am curious about which book gives this demographic breakdown?

Zanos
2017-03-07, 03:47 PM
3.5 PHB, page 13:

Alignment: Humans tend toward no particular alignment, not even neutrality. The best and the worst are found among them.
For absolutely no alignment trend, you would have to have (roughly) equal numbers among each of the nine alignments, one third of which have some Evil component.

RazorChain
2017-03-07, 04:28 PM
Hey everyone. I thought of something. If you have one member of the team is evil (doesn't matter if it's LE, NE or CE.) and you really trust that PC but then he or she betray your team and the outcome turns very bad for everybody. How will you handled this betrayal from an Evil PC?

The problem here is that most players are so stupid when it comes to betraying the party.

Murderhobo rule #1 Leave no one alive

Most people betray the party half heartedly, they don't make any real effort. Going after one party member that you hate is just stupid because the rest of the party will usually take his side. So if you only want to betray one party member then frame him and let him look suspicious to the rest of the party before you betray him. Then kill him for some crime against the party he didn't commit and your fellow party members will probably help you if you play your cards smart enough.

If you are going to betray the party then do it with style. If you are going to kill them then you have some options.

A) Invest in cooking skill, make sure you cook for the party all the time and establish this as a roleplaying routine ("I'll cook us a delicious meal"). Then you poison the party with your spicy food. When they are going to rules lawyer on your butt with some stupid rules about saves against poison then show them your formidable list of poisons and when they ask what you use then tell them that you used all of them......don't forget to add something like Mercury, Ricin, Batrachotoxin (akin to curare) and botulium toxin (made from your canned food) and let them explain away how they survived that. If you are playing a boring game like D&D where everybody and their mother either becomes immune or can cure poison then you should look for alternative methods.

B) Kill them while they sleep. Put up your watch routine, advocate for when traveling through non dangerous terrain that only one keeps watch and the just cut their throats while they sleep. The rules lawyers can't argue with you on that one, coup de grace exist in most systems. If they are suspicous then wait until you celebrate after your next dungeon delve and get them while they are obnoxiously drunk.

C) Lure them into a trap. Amass money, use all your money to build a dungeon that is just one giant trap. Now spread rumours and your fellow adventurer will surely bite. This is also a get rich quick scheme as you will probably get other adventurers and then you can loot their bodies as well. If you don't know how to make unbeatable traps, then just look to ol grimtooth for inspiration. Just because the Game Master has to play nice with his traps so you and your party survives doesn't mean that you have to as well.


As for the reasons why betray the party? For fun and profit of course! And if you are evil...just because you can!

Lacuna Caster
2017-03-07, 05:01 PM
3.5 PHB, page 13:

For absolutely no alignment trend, you would have to have (roughly) equal numbers among each of the nine alignments, one third of which have some Evil component.
Hmm. The handling of the subject seems to have varied between editions (http://theangrygm.com/alignment-in-dd-5e-s-or-get-off-the-pot/), but I think part of the problem here is that many spells/restrictions treat alignment as a set of discrete categories when (as the article suggests) they should really be handled as coordinates on a spectrum.

It might help if DE gave a readout on how nefarious the individual in question is (rather than how powerful, which isn't quite the same.) I'm not sure it really modifies the picture that radically, though, given you can back up DE with Detect Thoughts, Zone of Truth, and various other divination spells that all tend to shortcut regular intrigue.

Zanos
2017-03-07, 05:34 PM
Hmm. The handling of the subject seems to have varied between editions (http://theangrygm.com/alignment-in-dd-5e-s-or-get-off-the-pot/), but I think part of the problem here is that many spells/restrictions treat alignment as a set of discrete categories when (as the article suggests) they should really be handled as coordinates on a spectrum.
I really don't care for Angry's writing since he gives the advice to not write useless words and then takes 5-10 times as long as is necessary to reach any sort of point, so could I get a summary for that article? As I understood humans had the same alignment distribution in 5th.


It might help if DE gave a readout on how nefarious the individual in question is (rather than how powerful, which isn't quite the same.) I'm not sure it really modifies the picture that radically, though, given you can back up DE with Detect Thoughts, Zone of Truth, and various other divination spells that all tend to shortcut regular intrigue.
I think that DE not being perfect is a feature, not a bug. "It pinged so I killed it" is extremely boring.

Lacuna Caster
2017-03-07, 06:12 PM
I think that DE not being perfect is a feature, not a bug. "It pinged so I killed it" is extremely boring.
I'm not certain it's more boring than "I used Clairvoyance, he totally stole forty cakes", but you're still going to have certain grey areas when your ping reads at 26%. Or better yet, leave the spell out.

I believe the overall thrust of the article is that alignment is barely touched on in 5E D&D, and that WotC should either drop it entirely or provide more robust play-procedures/advice, which I largely agree with. (From what I can see of the 5E rules, there's no mention of an exactly even alignment split.)

Jay R
2017-03-07, 09:20 PM
I would actually say the rules of D&D were originally constructed for this exact purpose. The Good/Evil axis (well, originally Good/Chaotic) were introduced to provide a quick-and-easy labelling system for which dungeon-NPCs you were and weren't supposed to go carving up.

Not really. I never heard of Gygax saying that anything was constructed to make life easier for the players. The Law/Chaos axis(which mostly meant Good/Evil) was introduced for two reasons.

1. There's a moral component to almost any fantasy novel, and
2. It was a couple of cool-sounding words from Poul Anderson and Michael Moorcock.

The only line I can find in original D&D that comes close to the idea that you should be carving up people of opposite alignments was in the discussion of alignment languages.


Dungeons and Dragons Book I, Men and Magic[/B], page 11]One can attempt to communicate through the common tongue, language particular to a creature class, or one of the divisional languages (law, etc.). While not understanding the language, creatures who speak a divisional tongue will recognize a hostile one and attack.

But this does not imply that they are attacking because you are an opposite alignment, but because you are trying to hide your communication from anybody who isn't your alignment. It also isn't restricted to opposite alignments, and is equally good at justifying a Lawful character attacking Neutrals.

Nonetheless, in the stupid and simplistic early days of D&D, that is often how we treated it. The only two times I ever betrayed the party*, it was specifically because I was a Chaotic dealing with Lawfuls.

*That's the topic of the thread. Remember the topic?

I was playing a first level paladin in original D&D with only the first supplement Greyhawk. The party ranged from 1st to 5th level, was entirely Lawful (which meant Good).

My first level paladin couldn't afford a sword, and was wielding a mace.

After several encounters, a couple levels down in the dungeon, we were all down to 3 or fewer hit points. (Remember, in this game, 0 hit points is dead.) My paladin had a single hit point left.

The treasure we had just found included a sword, which the paladin asked for. He received the right to pick it up. Unfortunately, it was a high-ego chaotic sword, and the first thing that should happen when my paladin touched it is that he should have received 2d6 points of damage, which would have killed the character. The DM made a few rolls behind the screen, and then wrote and handed me a note.

"This Chaotic sword has changed your alignment. You are now chaotic, and holding a chaotic Flaming Sword."

I thought for a moment, and asked to speak to him privately. When we got into the other room, I told him, "I don't have any questions for you. I just want them to believe you gave me more information than the note had." I was working out how to survive being a first level Chaotic character surrounded by Lawfuls up to level five. I told him my plan, we waited a couple more minutes, and then we walked back in.

My (ex-)paladin told the group, "This is a Holy Sword with a quest I have to take on alone. I need you to go back the way you came. It's important that you do as I ask. Go back single file, and no matter what you hear, DON'T LOOK BACK."

Of course the five characters trusted my paladin, and did as he asked. My chaotic ex-paladin came up and stabbed each one in the back. Several times the DM said, "You hear a stab behind you, and a body slumping." "We don't look back." After five times, he told them that they were all dead.

So the only time I have ever had a character attack anybody else in his party, my paladin character murdered an entire Lawful (good) party.

Actually, this was betraying some characters in another party, but still...

A party of adventurers had many items, including a useless Bag of Duplication. If you put something in the bag, you would get a useless duplicate: swords that didn't hold an edge, magic items that looked identical but weren't magic, food that tasted bad and didn't satisfy, etc.

This party was turned to stone by a bunch of cockatrices. My "paladin" heard about them, and went out to rescue them. (My character at the time was an ex-Paladin who was turned Chaotic (evil), but no other players knew it yet.)

Some time later, they woke up back in town, having been rescued by a paladin, who (of course) refused any kind of reward. But for some reason, none of their magic items worked. I understand they spent a fair amount of time trying to find out how being turned to stone would neutralize their magic items, and looking for a way to reverse the result.

Meanwhile, my ex-paladin had several new magic items. They never came looking for him, because they never realized that their real magic items had been stolen.

Not long after that I got sort of embarrassed about having done it, and have never been willing to betray a party since.

Lacuna Caster
2017-03-08, 03:51 AM
Not really. I never heard of Gygax saying that anything was constructed to make life easier for the players. The Law/Chaos axis(which mostly meant Good/Evil) was introduced for two reasons.

1. There's a moral component to almost any fantasy novel, and
2. It was a couple of cool-sounding words from Poul Anderson and Michael Moorcock.

The only line I can find in original D&D that comes close to the idea that you should be carving up people of opposite alignments was in the discussion of alignment languages.
I think we went over (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?502049-Alignment-Based-Roles-and-Goals&p=21261029&viewfull=1#post21261029) this topic before, and an earlier poster was kind enough to post an article (http://www.jovianclouds.com/blackmoor/Archive_OLD/rpg2.html) by Dave Arneson on the subject going back to the primordial days of chainmail. I don't think it makes explicit that you should be carving up opposite alignments, it's just that 'carve 'em up' was the implicit default behaviour for everyone, and having team flags was supposed to rein that in.

To this day, if you crack open the 5E DMG, it's recommended you have clearly evil opposition and clearly good-and-helpful NPCs when you run a dungeon-crawl campaign. "It pings, so I killed it" is perfectly functional in that context, and that's actually the game's baseline environment.


(I'll just note that the angry GM article also mentions that he won't run games with evil PCs, because he (A) expects genuine role-play and (B) role-playing genuine evil inevitably spells trouble for the party. I'm inclined to agree.)

ErebusVonMori
2017-03-08, 06:18 AM
On the subject of betrayals, game I'm in at the moment has a deliberately Lawful Stupid paladin and my character who's a LE necromancer/Jasidin cleric, as well as CN drow rogue who actively steals everything not nailed down and an int 6 NG elf druid.

Well the paladin and I have been quietly but blatantly gearing up for a 'Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal moment' with the DM happily providing plenty of temptation for me and moral greyness for him.

Well we've found a young black dragon and after negotiations broke down we're trying to kill it, him because it's admitted to massacring a settlement and me because it would improve my public image as a holier-than-thou knight when we both get blindsided by the druid weighing in the on the dragon's side 'as it's only following it's nature'.

Point being not all betrayals are obvious good vs evil based.

Quertus
2017-03-08, 07:51 AM
For one thing, they may have just gotten out of prison for their crimes, in which case they cannot be punished further for them. They may have been pardoned.

I now really want to play see the paladin who waits outside jails, killing anyone who comes out who wasn't redeemed, and still pings as evil.

Although, if your corrections facilities fail to correct the prisoners, it's probably time to correct the corrections facility.

However, I think jails typically are about law, not good.

Segev
2017-03-08, 11:04 AM
5e doesn't advocate "kill everything that pings as evil." It advocates having an antagonist that is already potentially violent pinging as evil being a final nail in the coffin allowing guilt-free lethal response. The first version is, simply, boring, as another poster noted. "I walk into town, and kill anybody who pings as evil. If anybody objects or looks horrified, I explain, 'It's okay; I'm a paladin and they really were a threat to you and everybody around them,'" is an awfully dull campaign. As you noted, too, the "don't make ambiguously unpleasant people ping as evil" advice is also given in the context of dungeon crawling, not RPing with townsfolk.

Jay R
2017-03-10, 12:28 PM
I now really want to play see the paladin who waits outside jails, killing anyone who comes out who wasn't redeemed, and still pings as evil.

He does this once, and is no longer Lawful, and therefore no longer a paladin.


Although, if your corrections facilities fail to correct the prisoners, it's probably time to correct the corrections facility.

Not necessarily. If the prisoner goes in as a Chaotic Evil murderer, and comes out Lawful Evil and prepared to do nasty things that are legal, then the prison has done its job. After all:


However, I think jails typically are about law, not good.

Right. But don't forget that paladins are about both.

Âmesang
2017-03-18, 11:27 PM
Or maybe Bob's been cursed by some malignant Chaotic prankster to ping as Evil for no reason other than to mess with those who can sense it, and he's really a perfectly nice fellow who isn't even aware of his alignment aura.
I'm keeping this in my notes for a future campaign. :smallbiggrin: Perhaps even have said prankster casually mention it in conversation (without pointing to himself as the culprit) before disappearing into the crowd.

On a similar note I've liked the thought of an evil spellcaster using Bluff to explain away his alignment as a result of the misdirection spell… "to better infiltrate the cult!" or similar villainous organization—whether the spellcaster actually knows the spell or not; haven't had a chance to use this, yet… though I did once have a 3.5 sorcerer cross-trained in Use Magic Device activate a holy avenger.

Dappershire
2017-03-19, 05:12 AM
DM approved Plot device only.


It occasionally pops up, but if you all aren't planning to betray each other, then its no fun for just one to do it.

I will say though, that a long run campaign I was in took a clever turn once.
A lieutenant sorceress for the bbeg kept getting away at the last second, even when we thought we planned everything perfectly, and our rolls were good. I figured the DM was just too proud of his character to let her die. Not great, but she kept leaving treasure behind, so we didn't complain too much. This this last time, we had her. Totally had her. We had crept through the whole place, disarmed every trap, killed every guard without a sound. Sure, we were low on hitpoints, but damage was never her strong suit. And I had scouted ahead and found her, basically alone and twiddling her thumbs. I came back, and as the others characters were off finding a hammer for all the nails we wanted to steal, I reported directly to the party leader, a Paladin. After I reported, I had to roll a perception check. I figured "Oh crud, I must have missed an ambush on the way back". After I failed, the DM turned to the Paladin and asked him to roll. But not perception. Confirmed crits. Im so confused. Until the DM turns to me and says "You're looking around the room, left, right, anywhere but into the eyes of the man in front of you. You don't really recall the reason why you wont meet his gaze, until a sharp twist of his wrist brings it all back. Betrayal. Painful, painful betrayal. You spit up blood, falling to your knees as he jerks his long sword from out of your chest."
He then went around, murdering the other party members. Turns out, our actions through our whole time together, had been making his character slowly alignment shift. Choose the lesser of two evils. Until he finally broke. and Fell. Apparently he had been helping the sorceress escape the last two game nights, and none of us had noticed the hints given out.

So, just saying, its not always the evil bastards you have to look out for.

Segev
2017-03-19, 10:55 AM
I'm curious: how did the paladin mess with your memory?

Beelzebubba
2017-03-21, 05:36 AM
Well, the logic is, a paladin is forbidden to associate with evil. Therefore, associating with evil is evil.

Jesus hung out with the dregs of society. Because that's how you help them. By being the good example and showing them how to be better.

That Paladin logic isn't one of a hero, it's of a psychotic who just wants to kill people, and is looking for an excuse - and fundamentalism is a perfect one to use.

I remember being 'that' kind of Paladin as a kid, and I think it took getting a bit older to realize what 'lawful good' actually is, and it's so very rarely shown in the 'real world' I can see why it's difficult to role-play. So I'm not ragging on people, but...there's a reason those people are usually behind chaos in the world too, so I'm not surprised it happens at the gaming table too.

Segev
2017-03-21, 08:51 AM
If you take a step back from looking for an excuse (whether to play a jerk paladin or to assume all paladins must be jerks), "will not associate with evil" in context clearly includes tacitly condoning it. A paladin can't party with an unrepentant evil jerk who keeps being unrepentantly evil and rubbing the party's face in it. He can't turn his back and stick his fingers in his ears and "not notice" that the evil is happening. He can't protect and defend the evil one from the consequences of his evil actions.

He can be in a party with an evil character over whom he's keeping watch. He can be there to find ways to avoid allowing excuses for evil, and to serve as a counterpoint to it. He can be in a party, even friendly with, an evil person, as part of trying to redeem him.

He cannot work for an evil organization that he is helping further its evil aims. He can work with an evil organization's representatives if they have mutually agreeable goals. (Being a paladin, if the evil organization's goals agree with his in this mission, then obviously it's one of the non-evil goals the organization has.)

Paladins are high-charisma knights of purity and justice who can very much be the all-loving hero. They can be on excellent terms, personally, with their rogue's gallery. In fact, they'd probably like to be. That doesn't mean they won't stop them or fight them. And it's probable that at least some of their gallery will be upset enough by the constant opposition that 'good terms' just aren't a thing they can maintain.

But nothing says Paladins can't get along, personally, with evil people when those evil people aren't being evil. Only that they can't associate with evil. They always have to be striving to thwart, mitigate, and exhort atonement for evil deeds.

But any of the paladins of the Sapphire Guard could have been members of the Order of the Stick (if they weren't jerks like Miko), despite Belkar's presence. They could even be friends with the little twerp. But, like Roy, they'd have to be constantly keeping him under control, and preventing him from doing evil.

Koo Rehtorb
2017-03-21, 12:12 PM
Jesus hung out with the dregs of society. Because that's how you help them. By being the good example and showing them how to be better.

Who says Jesus was a paladin? I say Jesus was a cleric. I say clerics are the ones to save the salvageable sinners where paladins are the ones to smite the unrepentant ones. Paladins are the swords of their deities.

Which isn't to say that paladins can't have so much as a talk with evil people. But I think any such talks should be in the context of being in town, or in passing. Traveling with an evil person is a tacit approval of their evil.

Segev
2017-03-21, 12:40 PM
Traveling with an evil person is a tacit approval of their evil.

This simply isn't true. Travelling with them and enabling their evil is tacit approval. Travelling with them and turning a blind eye to it is tacit approval. Travelling with them and preventing/minimizing/mitigating their evil is not tacit approval.

Otherwise, paladins couldn't take evil people prisoner to haul back to lawful courts for trial.

Koo Rehtorb
2017-03-21, 01:09 PM
This simply isn't true. Travelling with them and enabling their evil is tacit approval. Travelling with them and turning a blind eye to it is tacit approval. Travelling with them and preventing/minimizing/mitigating their evil is not tacit approval.

Otherwise, paladins couldn't take evil people prisoner to haul back to lawful courts for trial.

Travelling may have been a poor choice of words. I may have meant "adventuring with". If you're going out doing cool quests, killing monsters, getting treasure, and getting glory then you're inherently aiding all of your party members. And if you're doing that with an evil person it sends a tacit statement that being evil is okay to the world in general. "Vlad the Baby Eater can't be all bad. Sir Galahad is taking him on quests, after all!".

Spellbreaker26
2017-03-21, 01:11 PM
This simply isn't true. Travelling with them and enabling their evil is tacit approval. Travelling with them and turning a blind eye to it is tacit approval. Travelling with them and preventing/minimizing/mitigating their evil is not tacit approval.

Otherwise, paladins couldn't take evil people prisoner to haul back to lawful courts for trial.

It doesn't necessarily have to be mitigating. The paladin doesn't even have to know which members of the party are evil in 5e. He could just think "oh Grobnar, what a scamp" not realising Grobnar steals everything not nailed down while he's not looking.

Zanos
2017-03-21, 01:47 PM
This simply isn't true. Travelling with them and enabling their evil is tacit approval. Travelling with them and turning a blind eye to it is tacit approval. Travelling with them and preventing/minimizing/mitigating their evil is not tacit approval.

Otherwise, paladins couldn't take evil people prisoner to haul back to lawful courts for trial.
For what it's worth, the 3.5 code says that "a paladin will never knowingly associate with evil characters." I guess it depends on what you read into that. I wouldn't describe someone that I'm carting back to prison my associate, but if you spend 90% of your time half-babysitting half-adventuring with someone, associate is probably a fair description.

Elysiume
2017-03-23, 01:09 AM
For what it's worth, the 3.5 code says that "a paladin will never knowingly associate with evil characters." I guess it depends on what you read into that. I wouldn't describe someone that I'm carting back to prison my associate, but if you spend 90% of your time half-babysitting half-adventuring with someone, associate is probably a fair description.As an additional point of reference, from Pathfinder:

Associates: While she may adventure with good or neutral allies, a paladin avoids working with evil characters or with anyone who consistently offends her moral code. Under exceptional circumstances, a paladin can ally with evil associates, but only to defeat what she believes to be a greater evil. A paladin should seek an atonement spell periodically during such an unusual alliance, and should end the alliance immediately should she feel it is doing more harm than good. A paladin may accept only henchmen, followers, or cohorts who are lawful good.You need a pretty good reason to adventure with an evil character as a paladin, and even if you decide it serves the greater good, you're going to need to regularly seek out absolution.