What alignment should this character be?

[Chaosking]

Greetings everyone I'm Chaosking I'm new here but that's not really the point. See I'm not a D N D player and I know many of you consider the alignment system to be outdated but I love to categorize things so here we go
My friend and I have a little writing series / fanfic series that we work on together and the main character can e. Difficult to pin down to say the least. They're bad guys who occasionally do good things, sounds like a classic CN, right? But hers the problem the things that they do far outclass that of a typical chaotic neutral. They murder , they commit arson and even conquer plantetx when they can. So they're evil then, correct? Well here's the issue . They have a family and a nation to whom they're extremely attached and do everything to protect so while they do murder for momey and power they also do it to protect their family,if they betray their boss it's usually because they feel like their emlolyler ks a liability to their people. They love destruct and chaos but have befriended several heroes due to being charming, and sometimes even genuinely friendly at hers. When they don't feel like being absolutely trash people of course. A good example of their skewed moral compass is poisoning children as part of a cu.lbjt doing so to give them a " quick " death and adoring their own children . Ultimately their goals are one to do whatever the **** they want ,whenever they want,to have power as they have control issues and to provide a good life for their family and friends. At any cost.
So since their moral compass is a ****ing roulette wheel. Maybe you could help us place them on the correct alignment? Brief explanations of your choice are encouraged

[Man_Over_Game]

It boils down to your last line:

"Ultimately their goals are one to do whatever the **** they want ,whenever they want,to have power as they have control issues and to provide a good life for their family and friends. At any cost."

Even a random answer is occasionally right. Sometimes a selfish person's interests align with the right thing. That does not stop those things from being random or selfish.

You have Chaotic/Neutral Evil characters.

Consider for a second: Do they honor laws for any reason other than self preservation? Do they consider lives to have value, or is the value of a person determined by what they provide the character in question?
They honor their family, sure, but there is self-interest there. That is, they value things that are already tied in with their own lives. As soon as that ceases to be true, they have no qualms with murdering and pillaging. Focused or justified selfishness is still selfishness.

When challenged with these simple questions, their alignments aren't so complex. Similarly, sociopaths are often likable, even charming, people. Just because someone's likable doesn't mean that they can't be evil or chaotic, so why can't someone be both AND be likeable?

[Chaosking]

The post above this is pretty accurate but I just wanted to add some notes about the characters just to be sure

They're insane and they're well aware of this fact,embrace it even and revel in their own insanity,considering it creativity. That being said they don't have much of a goal outside of conquering anything they can,scamming people who're noticeably weak and desperate and just be pricks to be pricks. Their basic philosophy is ". Life has no meaning and if you're going to give it meaning at least have fun with it ". Shunned as children and considered ". Freaks " they want a world that's a nonstop party, a toy for them to play with,break and build back up at their whims . That being said they've stopped a plethora of bigger, more clsssically evil villians who want a tyrannical order of some kind,or want to destroy the world just to destroy it. They've played the hero many times but not because they care about most of the people on it ,but because it's ". Their turf " and, the people they do care about they'd literally die for

[Lunali]

First, an actual alignment is more or less irrelevant for PCs. It serves as a guideline for when you don't know how a character would react to something, but it won't always match behavior.

That said, there are a few general rules I use. Selfless vs selfish (family and close allies counting as self for this) usually works for good vs evil. For law vs chaos I use how much they plan ahead vs acting in the moment.

Strictly speaking, law vs chaos should be about whether they have a code of conduct and how much it constricts their behavior, but in practice that makes for a poor guideline.

[Naanomi]

Evil people can be heroic
Evil people can have personal connections they legitimately care about
Evil people can sometimes do clearly Good things (the inverse is also true, though less so)

As described, those characters are Chaotic Evil... showing signs of the kind of Evil exemplified in Pandemonium, the Abyss, and Carceri


First, an actual alignment is more or less irrelevant for PCs. It serves as a guideline for when you don't know how a character would react to something, but it won't always match behavior.
More true than in past editions, though there are still a number of (fairly ignorable) mechanical effects tied to alignment

[Chaosking]

I see. While I didn't see them as chaotic evil(. Or at least not what many people imagine when they hear it ya know bash baby brains out for fun type of evil ) I could see how they might come across the CE But thrufh the sees my friend and I have put them in scenarios where they,despite causing quite the mayhem were doimg something traditionally considered lawful .
One of their first bosses was a cruel, greedy and lazy kikg who's rules they exploited (. And never failed to bring up the fact that they were the brains behind his rule) , using his authority the group let's call them. Isfet (. That's Egyptian for chaos) used the kikg's authority to bully those who defied or previously mocked them.

[MoiMagnus]

I will agree with CE or NE. They're just not the "absurdly evil without any friend" kind of person.

They are egoist, they just happen to be egoist in favour of them and their family. (Instead of just them)

That's quite similar to characters that are "evil in favour of a nation". They will be pretty nice guys if you are part of their nation, helpful, generous, but they will ruthlessly enslave/torture/pillage anybody which is not, and give the benefits to their nation, and actively search for them (so clearly not just self defense). Still evil (and probably LE).

[JackPhoenix]

Do we have to do this again? All right.

Look at page 122 in the PHB. Read the sentences describing all alignments, then pick the one that best describes the character's typical behavior. That's the character's alignment. You may note none of the sentences mentions family or friends... that's because neither has anything to do with alignment.

[Ninja_Prawn]

100% chaotic evil for me. Not that it matters if you're writing fanfic...

[BloodSnake'sCha]

This look like the jerk/radical CE to me.

If you want some reading material for CE here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?446414-No-Limits-No-Regrets-A-guide-to-the-Chaotic-Evil-alignment) you go :)

[Chaosking]

100% chaotic evil for me. Not that it matters if you're writing fanfic...
Heh yeah I know it doesn't really matter but hey I love little thought experiments like this as "what is evil " is a favorite philosophical question of mine and a key theme in the sea
Just to add more context (. And to keep the conversation going because I love little debates / discussions as it lets people share ideas ) I'll add some dialogue between then though fair warning it’s a bit long due to all the aspects of their personalities and their archenemy whom I'll just call ". Little Red"

Red stared, unblinking at the body of the person she thought was her friend
". Eao. You killed him "
Isfet yawned, clearly disinterested
". Yes and he wasn't even a challenge..what a letdown thought someone with nuclear powers would be tougher"
They then got a cold look
". And had it not been for us, by the way little missy be would've killed you "
Red couldn't deny that
". It's just. Why do you do ths?"
". Mm?"
". Why do you..play this game with me? You try to kill me daily and yet you kill anyone else who tres to touch me"
". The same reason we play it with any other mortal like you,Red. We're demons after all and eternity can get dreadfully dull, particularly since all you humans are normally so boring..you're different, Red”
". But I..I'm not even human anymore,you took care of that "
". Hmm..yes we did "
". Why?"
". Well partially because you're our archenemy and we couldn't hunt you forever if you died at an underwhelming agelike 80 or something. And partially because well your optimism, infuriating as it is,is also..strangely endearing "
She blushed in embarrassment and griped
" you are so. Frustrating
". Ha ha ha oh Red that's a compliment in our book and if we were your age,we'd frustration you in another way". They winked
". Ughhhh. Go to hell"

". Been thete ,lovely little area might set up a vacation home there kt it's nothing compared to the Nightmare Realm. Ah home sweet home. Anyway Red, bottom line is we told you this would happen and you didn't lisyen. So despite our usual dynamic try to remember..you are a teenager,we are adults we know more than you, especially being parents and rulers so we know how you think . Nevertheless you kept us interested today you win a prize!"
Poof!
A tiny keychain or. Stars on it
". It's a little tiny galaxy breathtaking isn't ot ,ah the wonders of creation..". In an instant their serene smile became manic
". And when you twirl the chain it around the tiny people think it's an apocalypse,watch!! They spun it as millions of minuscule people screamed
". Ah!" Red went
". Ha ha, toodles Red!"
Poof! They were gone

Thoughts?
The thoughts don’t have to be on their alignment by the way they can just be on the characters themselves if you wish

[Chaosking]

Also...the story my friend and work on is always open to more writers and artists (. We REALLY need an artist). So if you guys like a mix of fantasy and sci-for elements and bog crossover universes this is the thing for you . PM me for more details