Why forbid the play of evil characters?

[Conradine]

The core rulebook says it, and despite the Book of Vile Darkness many groups / masters implement it even today.
But why, exactly, forbid the play of evil character?

It's not my intention to create a flaming debate, I'm asking for the precise reasons.


I can come up with three absolutely lecit and reasonable reasons:

1- Avoid plot derailing

Playing a Stupid Evil character is a good way to spoil the fun for everyone. Murderhoboes easily derail the campaign and create situations without escape by acting unreasonably hostile. Which leads to:

2- Avoid in game fighting

When an Evil character is an excuse to betray or attack other PC's, nobody is having a good time.

3- Good taste

Many people are uncomfortable with depictions of extreme cruelty and gore, and some player go too far when playing an Evil character.



---


That said, what could be other reasons? If a player wants to play an Evil pc that 1- is not unhinged, 2- avoid backstabbing and is able to cooperate, 3- has enough common sense to avoid behiavours that would disturb other player's sensitivities, there are other reasons to forbid it?

[JMS]

Basically, those three reasons, and the worry that even if someone says they'll avoid them, they might hit an unexpected pit-fall. If I knew and trusted the player, then yes, they can be evil, but if not, it's really risky, in a way that risks ruining the game and destroying fun, and while some risk can be good, a "no evil" can cut it down. That, and often it's not the story others want to tell, 5 brave heros and the villian go defeat another villian.

[DeTess]

That said, what could be other reasons? If a player wants to play an Evil pc that 1- is not unhinged, 2- avoid backstabbing and is able to cooperate, 3- has enough common sense to avoid behiavours that would disturb other player's sensitivities, there are other reasons to forbid it?

There is one major reason you missed, and that is campaign style. Sometimes a campaign requires player characters to be non-evil for the premise to work. If all PC's are members of the same goody two-shoes order of knights then an evil character just wouldn't fit in most circumstances. Likewise if the premise of a one-shot or short campaign is 'steal the dragon's hoard to save the orphanage' or something like that.

[Khedrac]

The best reason for barring it is if the main NPC quest-givers are paladin-like characters who check that their agents are not evil before they employ them.

Similarly, if significant parts of the adventure could not involve (or would kill) an evil character without posing a risk to others.

[No, I don't consider the response "re-write that part of the adventure" as always appropriate, it can work sometimes, but not always.]

The usual reasons though are as you have given - DMs with the perception or past experience the evil characters inevitably break the party at some point (which is my many will ban CN and some will allow LE - one of my players usually plays CN and does it very well without causing trouble so it can be done).

[Nifft]

D&D is a social game.

Evil behaviors are often anti-social behaviors.

Evil behaviors can be directly detrimental to the enjoyment of other players.

It's possible to run a decently social Evil game -- I've done it -- but it'll take extra effort from everyone at the table.

[SimonMoon6]

1. You're a hero Most games are designed around the idea that the PCs are heroes. Heroes try to destroy evil wherever it may be found. So, if a PC is evil, the other PCs are *supposed* to destroy him. That's the point of the game.

2. What if everyone's evil? It is very hard to motivate an evil party. Other than rewards of money (or power), not much would really motivate an evil person to go on an adventure. The whole campaign would have to alter to reflect that going far away to save a damsel in distress (or save the kingdom or save the world)... those are not really things that an evil person cares about (maybe the world). An evil PC would rather conquer/destroy the world himself... and that's an entirely different kind of adventure that isn't as easy to setup or manage. And if he succeeds, then what? After you've conquered/destroyed the world, what's your second adventure going to be?

[Conradine]

I played several Evil characters in my not-so-brief life.
Let me dig in my sweet memories...

1- Antares. My favourite character, he made at least a brief appearance almost in every game I played. In my very first session he was motivated by love ( of a Paladin which was also his adoptive sister ). In another - under the identity of the warrior Manowar - by loyalty toward his mentor and shared hatred for a common enemy. Then, by greed for the most, but he appreciated friendship.

2- Arthur. A fierce berserker... but honestly was more Chaotic Neutral than Evil. The DM insisted upon the evil alignment because I refused to spare surrendering enemies... but hey, you attack me, I kill ya.

3- Konrad. A cleric of Demogorgon, the most disturbing character I ever played. Multiple personality disorder, paranoid, psychopath. But with enough restrain to work as a sword for hire.

4- Samuel. A werepug ( variant of werewolf ), originally LG, still adapting to his new life as ravenous monster. It didn't ended well for that pc.

5- Sammaiel. Quite crazy berserker but played less seriously than Konrad in his madness, for the most he hallucinated about floating green skulls. Served under the church of Nerull so he was obedient out of delusional faith.

[Sutr]

I'd add having pcs say but I never got to play my alignment. I've allowed evil in a group of good pcs and the player was upset surrounded by 4 other good characters that he was never able to be evil.

[Railak]

I personally am completely for people playing evil alignments, i think it's actually more a misunderstanding of what an evil character is on the DMs part. It's like the DMs who just outlaw psionics because they don't understand it. They have a hard time grasping that an evil character would want to save the world.

Now that's not to say that there are just some campaigns that an evil character just doesn't work. Usually because the campaigns story is a bit more railroady or forcibly good aligned.. a perfect example of a campaign where an evil character wouldn't really be a good fit (not saying you couldn't play one) is a campaign where the party is being sent by the actual god Bahamut to go fight the forces of Tiamat. With Bahamut being a god of good dragons, he might not take kindly to an evil human standing before him.. specially since he probably wouldn't take too kindly to any human standing before him.

Now one thing I don't like is when people say my character does this or that because their character is evil. Basically playing an alignment instead of a character.

One that technically isn't an issue but I don't like either would be just putting down evil alignment for no reason at all aside from its entertaining and do absolutely nothing with it.

[False God]

Basically...because most people play evil poorly, and by poorly, I mean they're jerks. Few people play evil with class.

[LordBlades]

IMO, it's mainly 2 things: player behavior and adventure design.

- Player behavior: while being a jerk is a player problem and not a character one, many use Evil characters as a mean to that end. Personally, I've been (un)lucky enough that most jerks I've gamed with preferred LG (paladins) instead of CN/Evil

- Adventure design: a lot of published modules seem to rely on players wanting to do the right thing as a motivator. For a character where that desire isn' t there and the DM doesn't alter the adventure, you'll often be hard pressed to find reasons to follow the story. P. S. : This isn't necessarily an Evil character problem, rather a non-Good character problem. I'm facing the same issue in a current campaign, with a party-friendly CN Shaper Psion I'm playing. Guy's a practically-minded mercenary and treasure hunter, who's mostly motivated by gold and doesn't really care about good or evil. DM OKed the background and personality without any comments, but first plot hook of the campaign is basically 'put yourselves into harm's way because it' s the right thing to do, but we're poor peasants so there's no monetary reward for it'.

[Mordaedil]

We allow evil characters at our table with the idea that they are made to be redeemable or at least not going to be ***** to other party members.

I might have stepped on a few toes back when I played an evil character and we took a mission to clear a site of homeless people, we went there and told them to get lost and one of the hobos smashes a bottle and then my character slaughtered every one of them while the good side of the party watched on in horror.

Basically, the recommendation is more for the fact that you can't always trust everyone to play evil right for the campaign you are doing. You have to know the players fairly well to allow them to play evil imo. And if you do and you think they can handle it, then by all means go for it. It's just that most people can't do it right.

[Endarire]

"Evil" as a concept is effectively a set of motivations that may result in a similar end result for your group. What the game considers "Evil" and what we as players and GMs and content creators consider "Evil" may differ. Is someone a villain or a hero? That largely depends on what you believe, and having enough people agree to play in a game that's largely about perspective - which can be quite divisive - requires cooperation and coordination amongst players.

The best understanding I have of "Evil" is merely making a shallow copy of what is "Good." I presently lack any examples that would likely be safe for this forum, but imagine "Evil" as trying to distract people from what is "Good," or redefine good as bad and bad as good.

[TiaC]

Generally, evil characters come with the possibility of PvP, or at least characters putting personal goals above the group. Most D&D games aren't set up to handle this. Many parties are random groups of strangers who met in a bar and instantly began to trust each other with their lives.

One of the strongest parts of the social contract in most D&D games is that the party will cooperate, even if that might not make perfect sense in character. When someone shows up to one of these games and says that they want to play an evil character, the subtext is usually that they don't really want to play the same game that everyone else is playing. This means they are likely to be disruptive players, as they are breaking a OOC rule about how the table expects the game to be played, in the same way they might be by bringing sexual content into a game that hadn't included any. In most games, the players want to work together without second-guessing each other, and they can't do that if there's an evil character.

None of this applies to games where the whole party is evil, as in that case, everyone knew what sort of game it was coming into it and wasn't assuming strong party loyalty. In that case, the disruptive player would be the one playing a holier-than-thou paladin.

[Mr Adventurer]

Specifically because it's not worth the effort of working around all of the concerns people have raised here just because someone wants to be a snowflake.

[Troacctid]

D&D is a heroic fantasy game. How do you have heroic fantasy without heroes?

[BlackOnyx]

That said, what could be other reasons? If a player wants to play an Evil pc that 1- is not unhinged, 2- avoid backstabbing and is able to cooperate, 3- has enough common sense to avoid behiavours that would disturb other player's sensitivities, there are other reasons to forbid it?


I remember reading an article somewhere about playing evil "right" that made a lot of these same points.


The main takeaway? "Evil" characters are fine so long as they're only "evil" to NPCs, not other players.


Evil characters, lawful or chaotic, should still be able to see the benefits of having allies. These characters may be selfish, but they can still be team players if they perceive the payoff (that is, the continued loyalty/protection of other, powerful adventurers) to be worth it.


As long as a player builds their character with that motivation in mind (and can be relied upon to follow through with it), running an evil character shouldn't really be an issue in most campaigns.


The campaign I'm currently running is actually a good example of this in practice. 32 sessions in and the current roster includes:


- A senile human farmer-turned-knight who believes devils to be saviors and helps gather souls accordingly.

- A savage orc-druid monstrosity with willing deformities that doesn't apologize for his feral impulses.

- A greedy elan erudite who mentally manipulates/threatens mundane folk with glee, smugly belittling those that oppose him as they try (and fail) to seek revenge.

- A proud neanderthal green dragon shaman who thinks himself a god, gang-pressing his vanquished foes (bandits, thieves, or monstrous beings) into his service.


The thing that allows these four characters to coexist, despite their varied goals? The realization that they're stronger as a group than they are on their own.



There is one major reason you missed, and that is campaign style. Sometimes a campaign requires player characters to be non-evil for the premise to work. If all PC's are members of the same goody two-shoes order of knights then an evil character just wouldn't fit in most circumstances.


This is another big stumbling block for most. Like a few others have mentioned, a lot of traditional d&d modules are based off the assumption that characters are "heroes." They assume passive acceptance on the players' part, believing they'll do good because its the right thing to do.


Villains, on the other hand, are the opposite of their heroic counterparts; they're proactive, not passive.


In your traditional "good campaigns," a hero won't be called upon until things have already started to go south. The main goal of these campaigns is usually to reestablish some level of status quo, thwarting the plans of "the bad guys" so that things can return to "normal."


"Evil campaigns" are all about changing the status quo. Shaking things up. Imposing your will on your surroundings and shaping the world to your designs.


Open world campaigns (where the players are the ones that decide on the goal of the story) are the campaigns best suited for an "evil" story. From one session to the next, just about anything can happen; any NPC can die and nothing is sacred. In these campaigns, the development of a detailed/expansive backdrop and numerous open plot hooks is a must.


For DMs used to running heroic campaigns where players are expected to react in a certain way to events taking place on a predetermined outline, this transition can be a challenge.

[FaerieGodfather]

That said, what could be other reasons? If a player wants to play an Evil pc that 1- is not unhinged, 2- avoid backstabbing and is able to cooperate, 3- has enough common sense to avoid behiavours that would disturb other player's sensitivities, there are other reasons to forbid it?

I like playing Evil characters, and really appreciate a game in which I can shine-- which usually involves a sandbox game in which the PCs are not necessarily allied. I got to play in one of those here, on these forums, and it was brilliant.

But a really well-played Evil PC in a team game is a lot like a really poorly-played Paladin PC: it forces all the other players to play by your rules regardless of the character concepts they brought to the table and wanted to play. The more they have to turn their heads and justify their Evil friend's actions, the less they're playing the heroes they wanted to be... just like they can't play sellswords and knaves while they're tip-toeing around Dudley Do-Right's Code of Conduct.

One benefit that I will grudgingly admit comes with the Alignment system is that it's quicker for identifying these problems off the jump than most nuanced, actually playable systems.

[Calthropstu]

Most people play evil to allow jerk behavior under the guise of evil. It's disruptive more often than not.

[Celestia]

It's because groups want to avoid behavior that is not conducive to a collective experience but are too chicken s*** to tackle the real problem head on. Thus, they perpetually attack the symptoms. "No evil characters." "No overpowered characters." "No bards." It doesn't solve the problem and only hurts those people who can play such characters well but aren't allowed to.

[D+1]

1- Avoid plot derailing
2- Avoid in game fighting
3- Good taste
About sums it up. And that's enough.

I've played plenty of evil PC's and with all-evil parties, but taking this simple step of, "No evil PC's," is NOT DM cowardice, nor is it an unreasonable limitation upon players any more than limitations on classes and races has ever been.

[TheYell]

I'd add that a lot of us have confusion about our character motivations but put down, "I adventure to crush evil in forms I find it".

Putting evil right next to them undermines that a bit.

[Psyren]

D&D is a heroic fantasy game. How do you have heroic fantasy without heroes?

^ This; while it's possible to have evil heroes, it's usually harder, so many tables don't bother. But the ban isn't actually wired into the system (except in 4e and sanctioned play.)

[Malphegor]

I feel playing Evil involved a nuance that some don't get. People go for lolrandom 'I murder the innocent without reasonable cause' when the best kind of evil is the kind that is premeditated and is kind of a wild ride to achieve.

My advice, to anyone playing evil?

DISNEY IT.

I'll never attack the party unless they instigate it. Because as far as I'm concerned, they're just future minions when I decide to reveal my master plan.

You are not the Joker. The Joker is a jerk who nobody actually in their right mind would ever work with freely. Be Scar. Be Maleficent. Heck, be the Queen of Hearts if you're Chaotic. Frollo is too far, too serious. Keep it somewhat goofy. You're Karen from accounting, demanding that your way is the only way, not Sue the customer, who is threatening to drink all the slurpees and then throw up on the hotdogs.

Be the reed, not the mountain. Be flexible in your villainy, because good is unyielding 90% of the time.

The important bit is being likeable, because if you're horrible and you're evil, then you haven't really got much that party members will actually want to keep around.

Red Fel can usually express this better than me, they're good at detailing the ways of darkness.

[Conradine]

An Evil true friend is the kind of people who says:


" No, you'll free my friend now, no bargaining, or I'll not simply kill you. I'll torture and slay your family before your eyes while I flay you alive. Do you think I'm joking?"

Sometimes you want an Evil friend to cover your back.

[robsworld]

It's a long enough thread that I may have missed the reason that I'm about to convey.

You might not allow the play of Evil PCs (as I do) because, 'In your personal experience' - The 'results were no fun'. I thought that I could permit the play of Evil PCs, and I even permitted it in my early days (as a DM). I've been playing/DM'ing since 1976, and I'm always looking for a game, campaign, adventure, experience that is enjoyable to the participants (myself and the players). That's my personal goal (and the goal of many) in playing D&D. It can be an enjoyable, entertaining, even educational pass-time/hobby.

The play of Evil characters (when I permitted it), tended to always end badly. While some player's wanted to 'experience' the play of an Evil PC, and they thought they could play a 'balanced', 'rational' and 'controlled' evil character, they eventually did something (had their PC do something) so despicable that it ruined the game play for one or more of the other players (or myself).

There were various attempts to allow the play of Evil PCs in my early campaign/gaming days (by myself as a player in someone else game, but mostly by players in my campaign). These attempts always ended in a tragic and disturbing way. In many cases, the situation ended with the departure of one or more players from our group. In some cases, they resulted in bad feelings between players outside the game. It's a game, but young minds (even so called 'mature' players) can sometimes have problems separating game play from actual social contexts. There may be lots of reasons cited here (in the forum), but the best reason you will find; to allow or forbid, the play of Evil PCs is your own experience.

If you're seriously considering it, I would recommend that you go ahead and try it. Explain why you're allowing it. Explain that it's a 'test' or 'experiment'. Explain the boundaries of game play and in character behavior to all the players. If you find that you can control the level of 'Evil' exhibited by your players then you've done something I've never been able to do.

In my experience, experience is the best instruction in life.

[Alcore]

A simple lack of understanding.


Players are not the only ones who think in 2 dimensions when it comes to alignment. Most don't understand that evil have loved ones like a necromancer who travels the land looking for a cure for his poor sweet mother. Or that they can feel pity like an assassin that helps out an orphanage free of charge because he has lived that life. Or that orc warlords can show respect like after a brutal fight against some "heroes" spares the village he was going to pillage because of the good honorable fight he received. Or a mad titan collecting six mcguffins to cull the planet's population before overpopulation tries to kill all of them.


"Evil has trouble with motivation"? WTF? That is a personal problem. No matter the alignment you have to figure out why this guy is running around saving the day. If you can't then evil is not for you.


I don't know if they can't understand or willfully ignore the humanity of 'evil' as 99.9% of the time we are talking about mortal PCs and they are not defined exclusively by alignment.

[Mr Adventurer]

An Evil true friend is the kind of people who says:


" No, you'll free my friend now, no bargaining, or I'll not simply kill you. I'll torture and slay your family before your eyes while I flay you alive. Do you think I'm joking?"

Sometimes you want an Evil friend to cover your back.

Absolutely, unequivocally not.

[Evil DM Mark3]

(which is my many will ban CN and some will allow LE - one of my players usually plays CN and does it very well without causing trouble so it can be done).

I have been so tempted to do this from time to time.

I always allow LE as at least that way the Lawful side makes them predictable and lets the party feel at ease, but only if I trust the player. There are some players I would trust with CE, but not many and not always the best RPers or the ones who might expect me to.

Having evil characters brings evil actions into the game in a much more up close level. Torture, theft (and not the adorable street rat kind), rape, extortion, these are things an evil character might want to do, sometimes for plot relevant reasons. You need a player who can decide to break character and suddenly forget how to be evil when the time comes. It is very easy to end up going to far.

Also, in my experience, the moment evil separates itself from neutral tends to be an awkward one. A CE "I do what I want and I don't give a :smallfurious: about anyone else or what they think" character is exactly the sort to just walk away from the group once the fight turns bad. The one time I played a LE rogue this happened as the game came to a close. The party had been rude and preachy the whole time, but I had a contract. Then the contract ended as we had killed the Lich and we went out for drinks.

Damn the dwarven racial bonus vs ingested poisons.

[Conradine]

In my opinion, evil characters - expecially Neutral Evil characters - should be easier to play, not harder, because they are truly free to do what they want, including associating with as many neutral or good character they want.

The point is, while Good require vigilance and a constant heart, Evil requires just one horrible deed ( and unrepentance ).

A character can be nice, polite, reasonable, cooperative, a good friend, a loyal business associate...
but if ten years ago he made a small fortune trading slaves and never repented he's still Evil, no matter how many Good deeds he does.

In Fiendish Codex it's stated clearly that the evil mortals do outweight their good deeds.

"According to the terms of the Pact Primeval, as negotiated between Asmodeus and the lawful deities, the good that mortals do in life is outweighed by the taint of sin. (…) Any lawful character who dies with a corruption rating of 9 or higher goes to Baator, no matter how many orphans he rescued or minions of evil he vanquished in life."


I find it reasonable since the sins listed are heinous.
A person can't ruin other people's life, rape, torture, sell people in slavery and then consider himself Neutral because after that he behaved well, even heroic. The damage is done and stays, unless he atone ( and atonement is not easy ).


So it's perfectly reasonable to have an Evil character who don't need to reaffirm constantly he's Evil: his closet full of skeletons does it for him.

[hamishspence]

A person can't ruin other people's life, rape, torture, sell people in slavery and then consider himself Neutral because after that he behaved well, even heroic. The damage is done and stays, unless he atone ( and atonement is not easy ).


So it's perfectly reasonable to have an Evil character who don't need to reaffirm constantly he's Evil: his closet full of skeletons does it for him.

After they have repented but before they have atoned, it's reasonable to say that such a person is "Corruption 9+ but Not Evil" - and elegible to be transformed into a Hellbred after death.

Evil is not wholly about one's corruption score - it's also about one's attitude to Evil deeds, including their own past ones.

[HeraldOfExius]

In my opinion, evil characters - expecially Neutral Evil characters - should be easier to play, not harder, because they are truly free to do what they want, including associating with as many neutral or good character they want.

This free pass to do whatever they want is exactly why people don't allow evil characters. Most people have an unfortunate tendency to play "evil" characters in a really immature way, where everything about them simply must be defined by complete disregard for all things good. Their actions are motivated by the concept of "being evil," which is dumb and annoying. Murdering innocents because you're evil doesn't really add anything, and other people will find it distasteful. Slaughtering the entire orc camp for revenge because orcs razed your village is evil (especially so if these were not the same orcs), but it's not much more disruptive than typical adventurer behavior.

[False God]

In Fiendish Codex it's stated clearly that the evil mortals do outweight their good deeds.
Why are you starting a discussion if you're just going to shut it down with "But the book says....!!!"

Either you're interested in an interesting philosophical discussion about morality in D&D, or you just want to play "gotcha" with forumers by asking a question you already know the answer to (or already have the answer you want).

{Scrubbed}

[Quertus]

Only on page 1, but most of the "reasons" given so far are half-right, at best. There *are* reasons not to allow evil characters, but they're not (most of) those given thus far.

Let's start with the OP.

1- Avoid plot derailing

OK, first off, "murderhobos" are usually "good". Second murderhobos usually work just fine with most published modules. So this is doubly not really a valid reason. However, there is a serious issue (or two) buried there:

1a- plot hooks

The character has to match the adventure. In particular, they have to match the plot hooks. So not all characters match all adventures. But that's a matter of personality much more than of alignment.

1b - bad adventure design

Some adventures are only written with "good" charters in mind, so their plot hooks only cover a very narrow range of characters. Which is especially bad when they don't telegraph this.

2- Avoid in game fighting

As others have hinted at, the classic Lawful Good Paladin is actually the biggest cause of in-game fighting at many tables. In fact, it's all but designed to encourage this. Yet people (foolishly) don't (usually) ban Lawful Good.

Having moral compunctions that can put the character at odds with the party is the reason that allowing Good characters is bad for party unity. Evil has no such compunctions, and thus is much better for party unity.

Whether you believe my propaganda or not (I *am* batting for team Lawful Evil, after all), the point is, evil causing in-game fighting is purely a player problem / social contract problem. It happens at least as readily (and I contend moreso) with good characters with actual personalities and conflicting values than with evil characters with personalities.

3- Good taste

This is definitely a social contract thing. After all, there are plenty of evil things that the party is fighting, right? So those "bad taste" things would be present, right?

Obviously, can they shouldn't be - and this is a feature of the social contract, not of a lack of villainous NPCs.

-----

However, to be fair,



I can come up with three absolutely lecit and reasonable reasons:

That said, what could be other reasons? If a player wants to play an Evil pc that 1- is not unhinged, 2- avoid backstabbing and is able to cooperate, 3- has enough common sense to avoid behiavours that would disturb other player's sensitivities, there are other reasons to forbid it?

Even the OP seems to admit that their reasons do not apply to *all* evil characters. So, although they don't explicitly say so, what they've given is no reason to ban *evil*, but to ban specific implementations / specific characteristics / specific characters.

-----

Which brings us to other people's bad reasons for banning evil:

1- Misunderstanding

This is actually the biggest reason people ban evil. They only understand one kind of evil - or their players similarly misunderstand evil - and so they throw the baby out with the bathwater, banning evil rather than calling out what they don't want.

2 - Laziness

I was tempted to include this under #1, but I feel that this deserves its own heading. Some GMs know that some evil is perfectly playable, but, because some isn't, they lazily throw the baby out with the bathwater, rather than banning the specific problems.

3- Motivation

Um… actually, good characters are usually reactive, whereas evil characters usually are much more self-motivated. So I'm not sure where this complaint comes from.

-----

Now, before I get into the actual reasons to consider banning evil, I want to call out this example reason to allow evil:



An Evil true friend is the kind of people who says:

" No, you'll free my friend now, no bargaining, or I'll not simply kill you. I'll torture and slay your family before your eyes while I flay you alive. Do you think I'm joking?"

Sometimes you want an Evil friend to cover your back.

See, evil will have your back, and do whatever is necessary for your safety. Good? Eh, they only kinda sorta have your back, until their morals get in the way.

-----

So, why should you ban evil?

1 - Maturity

Simply put, if you or your players cannot handle it maturely, then you probably shouldn't be playing with it, outside a one-shot to test to see if you've grown up.

2 - Theme

Sometimes, you really want the theme to be enjoy good heroes. However, I must point out, that needn't preclude evil characters: the Autobots had Mirage (lacked the empathy to understand why they were protecting humans) & Grimlock (who didn't care if the Earth was destroyed… until it was pointed out that he was on Earth), after all.

So theme is a "yes, but…"

3 - ???

Really, I got nothing. I thought I had a good reason to ban evil characters to close with when I started writing this, but it's slipped my mind. I may come back and edit it in later.

-----

Note: some modules really do punish Evil characters. But, then again, some modules really do punish Good characters, yet Good characters aren't banned from those modules. So I'm on the fence here.

[Conradine]

Why are you starting a discussion if you're just going to shut it down with "But the book says....!!!"

Either you're interested in an interesting philosophical discussion about morality in D&D, or you just want to play "gotcha" with forumers by asking a question you already know the answer to (or already have the answer you want).

{Scrub the post, scrub the quote.}


The OP discussion was, and is, about reasons for disallowing Evil Characters, not about the definition of evil character.
I didn't "shut it down" simply because I quoted the Fiendish Codex about the weight of good deeds vs evil actions.

I didn't know the answer of my question ( reasons to forbid evil characters ) and actually found several good reasons I didn't tought of.

Please, let's not flame a good thread.




Evil is not wholly about one's corruption score - it's also about one's attitude to Evil deeds, including their own past ones.

I agree. But I was talking about a character who did Evil in the past, never repented, still enjoy the benefits and has simply stopped doing evil now ( probably because he does not need to ).

Can we agree that if someone reach Corruption 9 and does nothing about it, no atonement and no repentance, even if he stops doing evil things he's still an Evil person?

[PoeticallyPsyco]

People often suggest that LE is the best type of evil for getting along with good characters. That's true to an extent; their evil is mitigated by their adherence to Law, to greater goals.

I posit that CE is just as good, or even better, at meshing with a group.

Take a look at the typical activities of an adventuring party: travel to interesting places, face interesting and varied challenges, and kill anyone who attacks them or who is otherwise in the way of the greater good (and can't be negotiated out of the way).

To most CE characters, that sounds like fun! More than enough fun to curtail their excesses, to conform to the moral standards of the rest of the party. While LE will work with good characters if it matches their goals, it can be tricky to incorporate them into a party because if the party's actions stop matching their goals, you'll have a problem. A CE character can have being an upstanding member of the party as their main goal, without ever conflicting with their characterization as Evil. Possibly my favorite character of all time, Locus, was defined by this, and was probably the most affable and devoted to party cohesion member of the group ("Exploring a cave full of vicious killer robots? Sounds like fun!" "Saving the world? Awesome, I love a good challenge." "Bandits attacking us? Oh, I'm going to enjoy this."). This does of course require a character both intelligent and capable of restraint... but that's true of any character expected to be consistently a team player.

It's essentially looking at the classic question "If this character does all these good things for completely non-Good reasons, are they good?" from the opposite direction. Of course they're not good, but that doesn't mean they're not an upstanding member of the party.

Side Note: This does run the risk of calling into question how Good the typical adventuring party's actions really are, if a blatantly psychotic character finds them so much fun. Depending on the group and the desired tone, this can be either an advantage or a disadvantage.

[Blue Jay]

Even the OP seems to admit that their reasons do not apply to *all* evil characters. So, although they don't explicitly say so, what they've given is no reason to ban *evil*, but to ban specific implementations / specific characteristics / specific characters.

I don't think this is a very productive way of thinking. Before the game starts, the DM doesn't know how the game is going to go, and any predictions he makes about it are going to be imperfect. So thinking in terms of absolutes like "all Evil characters" just isn't practical. He needs to think in terms of risks: he wants to maximize the chances of having a good gaming experience, and minimize the risk of having a bad experience.

People don't see risks in absolute terms, and it's unrealistic to expect them to. Risk is always relative to some baseline. For example, if the baseline is "there's a 10% chance that this game is going to be derailed irrevocably by some player being a jerk," then all it would take is for an Evil character to increase the chance above 10%: even 15 or 20% may be too much for the DM's comfort.

Obviously, the DM isn't going to see the numbers on that risk calculation, but he is going to see the various factors and try his best to judge the risks. And allowing someone to play an Evil character certainly does carry some measure of risk for the DM, especially if he doesn't know the player very well, for all the reasons that have been mentioned:

Evil characters are more likely to act in ways that are difficult to plan for, potentially increasing the stress of preparing and adapting the story.
Evil is more likely to be used as an excuse to justify toxic behavior on the part of a player.
Evil is more likely to do things that will offend sensibilities of other players, especially if the Evil is on the part of the protagonist.


Doubtlessly, many DM's overestimate the risk that an Evil character poses to their game (and conversely underestimate the risks associated with paladins), but I think it's unfair to say that an Evil character isn't a legitimate source of risk for the DM.

[hamishspence]

Can we agree that if someone reach Corruption 9 and does nothing about it, no atonement and no repentance, even if he stops doing evil things he's still an Evil person?

Might depend why. If every corruption point they gained was a 1 pt act - done mostly for Good reasons (casting Evil spells to save people) - but he doesn't feel the need to atone for the spells themselves (being unwilling to admit to himself that they damage the mortal plane and the damage needs repairing and atoning for) - a case could be made that he's LN (yet still Damned To The Nine Hells) rather than LE.

"Balancing evil acts with good intentions" is the schtick of "flexible Neutral antiheroes" according to Heroes of Horror. I could easily see such a Neutral character racking up the Corruption Points for entirely good reasons.

[LordBlades]

Evil characters are more likely to act in ways that are difficult to plan for, potentially increasing the stress of preparing and adapting the story.


This is something I hadn't really considered before, but you're right :)

I've realized a long time ago that Evil campaigns tend to be more proactive and player-driven than Good ones, but I've never put much thought into how this translated to individual characters.

If you're running a typical fantasy setting, the world is generally all-right apart from the plot threads you put in. This means the status-quo likely satisfies most Good/Neutral characters, which makes them very likely to follow the plot and do little else, whereas an Evil character might find an opportunity to further his goals where the DM least expects it.

[icefractal]

I think there are three levels where an evil character might clash with a non-evil party.

Tactical - Some people take evil to mean "stab your party members in the back". This obviously isn't necessary or even plausible for most evil characters, but it is a thing people do. Easily solved at least - just don't do it.

Strategic - If the campaign is one where reputation and social interaction is important, and the rest of the group is trying to maintain a good image, then an evil character being publicly evil can screw things up like a loud barbarian in a group of ninjas. Even a canny evil character that keeps it secret is still adding a huge potential failure point that didn't need to be there. Some types of evil characters can still work with this, others can't.

Stylistic - If getting immersed in the characters and invested in what happens to the game world is a big part of the game, which it is to many, and the other characters are supposed to be relatively decent people, then aiding and abetting an evil bastard really undercuts the fun. Even if they successfully keep everything hidden, it's still a downer. Oh, we're not directly guilty, we're just the chumps who accidentally helped Hannibal Lecter torture some people - that's just great. This, I don't see a good solution to.

[Alcore]

This is something I hadn't really considered before, but you're right :)

I've realized a long time ago that Evil campaigns tend to be more proactive and player-driven than Good ones, but I've never put much thought into how this translated to individual characters.

If you're running a typical fantasy setting, the world is generally all-right apart from the plot threads you put in. This means the status-quo likely satisfies most Good/Neutral characters, which makes them very likely to follow the plot and do little else, whereas an Evil character might find an opportunity to further his goals where the DM least expects it.(i think this slightly strays off topic but might be otherwise insightful)

And that is the Mentality problem that is mistaken for the Motivation problem that i will continue to call the motivation problem. For it still is that problem; the difference being that the player not the character suffers from it.


We are brought up needing only two motivations; "get gold" and "do good". You don't need both but the average GM is happy to have them for that means they can put most games in front of you and not derail it. Then, eventually, the itch to play something truly different comes up and we have an evil pc. Can't "do good" anymore with evil being just a word on the sheet and "get gold" is likely boring at this point.

So "do evil" is the most likely resort without putting more thought in. Player might not know the world so evil scheming can't be done without some planning with the GM. Some of my best evil came in established worlds (like golarion) and i could read about the political and social climate of nearby areas and make a PC with plans for those areas. Whether for petty vengeance or self righteous conquering it didn't much matter; i had the information i needed to make a compelling villain and give plenty of motivation to keep game on the rails;

Betraying the party is nice and all... but you have plans. You need the levels and riches the adventure brings. By the end you will even have good will and a safe place to retreat to if things go south. A place where your villainous title is "hero". Why rock the boat?



Then comes the end of the game. A neutral character might keep going for wealth. A good character might keep going to do more good. Both might say "screw it" and settle down with a wife and kids. Evil? He's got **** to do.

GM might not run that game but could easily narrate how his villainy succeded in the epilogue.

Come next game everyone might know who the big bad is...


But without motivations and a GM willing to allow the proactive evil to bend how his game goes it all simply self destructs.

[Ryton]

Similar to points that have been made, playing an Evil character in a Good themed game is probably going to take a bit of work from a good DM. The only Evil character I've played extensively was a LE warlock. I had to work with the DM to make sure we felt that the character had proper motivations to adventure with the party. Granted, he needed a Ring of Mind Shielding as so not to offend the sensibilities of the Favored Soul of Heironeous' Paladin cohort, but since we worked to understand the characters, with only a couple exceptional circumstances*, the rest of the characters might not have even realized. The other players knew, and were okay with it, which definitely helped too.

*The character opted to not accompany the rest of the party for a brief excursion to the plane of Celestia, one or twice uttered the Dark Speech, and there was the time he was the only one unphased by a Balor's Blasphemy.

[Jack_Simth]

I personally am completely for people playing evil alignments, i think it's actually more a misunderstanding of what an evil character is on the DMs part. It's like the DMs who just outlaw psionics because they don't understand it. They have a hard time grasping that an evil character would want to save the world.

Do keep in mind: A player with comperable misunderstandings is going to be similarly problematic. One of the things the DM will need to ID before permitting an Evil character in the party is "Is the player in question going to be a 'mature' evil or an 'immature' evil?"

Note that there's something of a catch-22 involved in this: Most DM's are going to have a hard time ID'ing how a given person will play evil until after the DM has seen that person play evil, but the DM needs to have a good idea about that before it's a good idea to let said person play evil.

Which makes it much simpler just to ban the alignment altogether.

[OGDojo]

The core rulebook says it, and despite the Book of Vile Darkness many groups / masters implement it even today.
But why, exactly, forbid the play of evil character?

Normally those three reasons are the basis for every alignment ruling, however the reason i limit alignment is mostlsy so that players will get along (or at least not stab each other in the back the first chance they get)

So i dont restrict evil unless we are playing a good campaign UNLESS one of the characters wants to be a saboteur, in that case i would allow for the evil alignment because having a character like that adds to the roleplay especially if they can do it right.

i have had entire Campaigns derailed because "I attacked the guard because im chaotic evil" was the excuse, the guards in my world are there to keep the city safe... FROM YOU!! if you attack them they will overwhelm you and overpower you. if you keep fighting they will do their duty and fight back until your dead or incapacitated.

[Quertus]

I don't think this is a very productive way of thinking. Before the game starts, the DM doesn't know how the game is going to go, and any predictions he makes about it are going to be imperfect. So thinking in terms of absolutes like "all Evil characters" just isn't practical. He needs to think in terms of risks: he wants to maximize the chances of having a good gaming experience, and minimize the risk of having a bad experience.

People don't see risks in absolute terms, and it's unrealistic to expect them to. Risk is always relative to some baseline. For example, if the baseline is "there's a 10% chance that this game is going to be derailed irrevocably by some player being a jerk," then all it would take is for an Evil character to increase the chance above 10%: even 15 or 20% may be too much for the DM's comfort.

Obviously, the DM isn't going to see the numbers on that risk calculation, but he is going to see the various factors and try his best to judge the risks. And allowing someone to play an Evil character certainly does carry some measure of risk for the DM, especially if he doesn't know the player very well, for all the reasons that have been mentioned:

Evil characters are more likely to act in ways that are difficult to plan for, potentially increasing the stress of preparing and adapting the story.
Evil is more likely to be used as an excuse to justify toxic behavior on the part of a player.
Evil is more likely to do things that will offend sensibilities of other players, especially if the Evil is on the part of the protagonist.


Doubtlessly, many DM's overestimate the risk that an Evil character poses to their game (and conversely underestimate the risks associated with paladins), but I think it's unfair to say that an Evil character isn't a legitimate source of risk for the DM.

You raise some interesting points, and I'll see if I can (start to) bridge the gap between our perspectives.

-----

"there's a 10% chance that this game is going to be derailed irrevocably by some player being a jerk,"
"Evil is more likely to be used as an excuse to justify toxic behavior"

Yes, evil is marginally statistically more likely than, say, Lawful Neutral or Neutral Good to draw out **** behavior. Then again, "Paladin" is even *more* likely to draw out **** behavior.

Now, this is a matter of… personal technique… but I prefer to run a few one-shots, and I *encourage* things that can draw out **** behavior in those one-shots. That way, the group can discuss what they enjoyed, and what they didn't. If one player, their every evil character brings out the **** in them? Well, you know that you probably don't want them running an evil character (and, you can look at *how* they were a ****, and evaluate their other characters more carefully for signs that the *player* is actually a problem ****).

So, if I took a probability heuristic from my vast experience gaming, looking at what caused problems at various tables, I would ban… certain players. And certain combinations of players (who hate each other IRL, or whose styles are just incompatible, for example). Next, I'd ban Paladins. And Thieves (and Assassins). And Kender.

After that? Necromancers, Barbarians, Dwarves, Druids, Chaotic Neutral, and Good. Plus characters drinking, using drugs, fornicating, or missing limbs. Players who are best friends with or SO of the GM, and players who don't quote cool things like Monte Python probably get the axe at this point.

Point is, once you remove problem players, there's a *lot* of things IME that statistically prove more problematic than "evil". I find that to "maximize the chances of having a good gaming experience, and minimize the risk of having a bad experience", it's best to make it as easy as possible to spot toxic players. I want to remove toxic players, not make it easy for them to hide their toxicity.

But, sure, if you aren't me, and aren't willing to confront bad players, I guess you can try to do damage control by attempting to minimize the number of ways that they can hurt your game. I just don't cotton to that mindset.

-----

I fully agree that "Evil characters are more likely to act in ways that are difficult to plan for". That's an awesome bonus! The only joy I get out of running a game is the party surprising me. So, by your logic, for me, evil characters would clearly be more fun.

Those who prefer more structured / railroaded games may have other preferences.

-----

"Evil is more likely to do things that will offend sensibilities of other players"

I already covered this, but to reiterate: so should all the evil NPCs. This needs to be part of the social contract, or else the GM should do this all the time. So, this isn't anything inherent to evil (because evil should exist in most games, right?), but to forming and following the social contract.

-----

Anything still unclear as to what I meant?

Anything where you think I misunderstood you entirely?

(EDIT: and why did you consider what "not a productive way of thinking"? Do you still consider it so?) (Quotes added to the paraphrase to help make the sentence make sense)

[LordBlades]

So "do evil" is the most likely resort without putting more thought in. Player might not know the world so evil scheming can't be done without some planning with the GM. Some of my best evil came in established worlds (like golarion) and i could read about the political and social climate of nearby areas and make a PC with plans for those areas. Whether for petty vengeance or self righteous conquering it didn't much matter; i had the information i needed to make a compelling villain and give plenty of motivation to keep game on the rails;
[...]
But without motivations and a GM willing to allow the proactive evil to bend how his game goes it all simply self destructs.

Even if Evil characters keep their long-term scheming to a minimum, they're still way less predictable than Good/Neutral characters, which requires additional effort from the GM.

For example, let's say the party reaches a town, where a LG and a LE faction are struggling for control (actual example from a very successful Evil Dragonlance campaign I've played in). It's easy to anticipate what Good guys would do: ally with the LG people, vanquish the LE people. Evil guys however might ally with the LE people, or they might ally with the LG people, or they might just play both factions against each other to try to take over themselves, or they might bring in a neutral 3rd party to take them both out etc.

[FaerieGodfather]

Now, before I get into the actual reasons to consider banning evil, I want to call out this example reason to allow evil:

...

See, evil will have your back, and do whatever is necessary for your safety. Good? Eh, they only kinda sorta have your back, until their morals get in the way.

I like playing healers, because I find that kind of power personally gratifying. A nice side effect, however, is that it makes the other PCs (and the other players) more willing to tolerate my... stark moral worldview. The thing is, while my loyalty is never absolute and I can be disturbingly ruthless in pursuit of my agenda, my friends (mostly) understand that their wellbeing and more importantly their goals have become a part of that agenda.

I'm still utterly selfish. I just have a more enlightened and expansive sense of self.


Even if Evil characters keep their long-term scheming to a minimum, they're still way less predictable than Good/Neutral characters, which requires additional effort from the GM.

This is what I call the "Comics Code mentality", where "heroism" is defined as "maintaining the status quo" for Lawful Good characters... and Neutral Good characters... and Chaotic Good characters... and Neutral characters. We already live in the best of all possible worlds, so how can Good dream of making it better? Proactivity and ruthlesness, somehow, have become synonyms.

Personally, I think every character above a certain (9th-10th) level should absolutely have a grand, sweeping plan to change the world... the fulfillment of which is the beginning of Immortality.

[LordBlades]

This is what I call the "Comics Code mentality", where "heroism" is defined as "maintaining the status quo" for Lawful Good characters... and Neutral Good characters... and Chaotic Good characters... and Neutral characters. We already live in the best of all possible worlds, so how can Good dream of making it better? Proactivity and ruthlesness, somehow, have become synonyms.

Personally, I think every character above a certain (9th-10th) level should absolutely have a grand, sweeping plan to change the world... the fulfillment of which is the beginning of Immortality.

That is a very good point, however I was trying to hint at something else with the part you quoted: in general, Good has more boundaries than Evil. A Good character would only rarely, if ever, perform an Evil act willingly. Evil has way less moral issues doing a Good act if it advances their agenda. In the end, this translates into Evil characters having more options and therefore being less predictable. Some GMs don't like that.

[Asmotherion]

On a new group; Mostly to prevent "stupid evil";

Personally i allow it but with a few guidlines as to "why is your character evil" and a list of things that will get in game punishment; An unexperienced player is more probable to become a murderhobo if they believe their actions have no consequences than if they are aware that the more they stretch their "i'm evil for the fun of it" trope the more the DM is going to be biased against them.

Stab someone as an intimidation attempt? Cool. Stab every person who ever disagrees with you? Don't find it weird that some "random npc" you stabed was actually the grandson of a wizard 3-5 levels higher than you and tracs you for revenge.

For fairness i have a random table of things that may happen to your character and each "stupid evil" act increases your chance for a roll by 1 percent.

[Elkad]

Just kicked off the new campaign. Same players I've had for nearly a decade. Nominally Good, with the guy who plays "CE in check" and writes CN on his sheet and keeps himself under control.

I stole from MCPlank (who posts here as yahzi) and made XP a physical quantity, but I didn't tell the players that. And then told them "don't bother writing down alignments, I don't care about that".

They immediately went full murderhobo/evil. And then when they figured out the secret, they immediately started stealing/hiding XP from one another. One (the CN guy) has nearly double the total of the rest already.

I fully expect PvP to break out within a couple sessions. And the greedy CE guy won't be the one that starts it. I think he'll stick to murdering the NPCs they are supposed to be rescuing.

It'll be the rest of the party killing him. And either he'll get backstabbed in combat, or the other 5 of them will simultaneously CdG him in his sleep.

[ezekielraiden]

1- Avoid plot derailing
2- Avoid in game fighting
3- Good taste
These would be the main reasons.


That said, what could be other reasons? If a player wants to play an Evil pc that 1- is not unhinged, 2- avoid backstabbing and is able to cooperate, 3- has enough common sense to avoid behiavours that would disturb other player's sensitivities, there are other reasons to forbid it?
Because the overall campaign tone doesn't jive with it. I forbade evil PCs in the game I run. Not because I thought the players would be disruptive--they're all friends, I know them well enough to trust that they wouldn't do that--but rather because an evil hero doesn't fit in the overall world-structure I'm using.

Maybe a better way of saying that is, the "good taste" requirement is an agreement between the players not to do something that makes people uncomfortable. The requirement I'm talking about is, if you're going to actually be "evil" in any meaningful sense of the word--exploiting others for personal gain or to further your personal ends, regardless of the harm that may cause--then your character wouldn't be on the adventures I'm willing to run. In my campaign, someone who exploits others in this way would be one of the bad guys, and has enormous reasons to settle down, set up a "legitimate" business, and start working toward their evil goals full-time. Adventuring is a path to power, sure, but the real power in this setting is financial and institutional, and adventuring is mostly a hard counter to that. Adventuring means being disconnected from society for long periods, and sinking most of your money into equipment and travel expenses.

As an example, one villainous character dropped ten thousand dinars to get ahold of an artifact ruby (it's not magical, but it has major social/historical value)--despite the characters being nearly max level, they have at most collected 3k-4k dinars combined over their entire career, so this is an ENORMOUS amount of money. (I did specify that the aforementioned villain would have had to give up some of his fixed investments to do that a second time, but he had more than enough money to do it once. And he's definitely powerful and influential--among the most powerful people in the city.)

So my "precise reason" would be:
4. Because evil doesn't adventure, it hoards and insinuates and worms its way into power.

I freely grant that, in other settings/games, a character could adventure with evil motives. But I find real, serious evil doesn't adventure, it gets adventured against. When combined with your reason 3, it doesn't seem like there's meaningful room left for a serious evil character. They can't do the obvious, over-the-top evil stuff, because that is extremely likely to be in bad taste. And they can't do the subtle, encroaching type of evil, because that's the opposite of being an Adventurer, it requires settling down and building a power base. If you can't do subtle and you can't do grandiose, the only real option left is hardcore antihero territory, and let's be honest, grimdark edgelords are almost always incredibly boring.

So yeah. Evil that merits the name is either boring, in bad taste, or non-adventuring. Since I encourage my players to be none of those things, I also request that they choose not to play evil characters. Neutral characters, who may do evil or questionable things, are okay; if you choose to play a truly Neutral character on the Good/Evil scale, I will interpret that as you signalling to me that your character will engage in Dirty Business now and then and not feel too bad about it. Such characters can be healthy for an adventuring group, as they encourage the goody-two-shoes types to at least give a care for their personal well-being and for practical concerns, which are easily lost in the "BUT WE MUST SAAAAVE THEM!" stuff. A mixed Good/Neutral party is, IME, more enjoyable than a party solely in either camp.

[martixy]

The 3 reasons you listed are the classical ones.

You, however, listed the symptoms rather than the root causes.

The deeper reasons however is that 99% of people lack the understanding required to play an evil character; or see that character as a vessel for deriving a certain egotistical enjoyment of the game. They do not understand what it means to be evil, because they do not practice being evil on a daily basis. And because this is a game, and they've come to have fun, they cannot be bothered to engage their thinking caps to actually reason about what it means to be evil. Therefore you end up with the lazy version of evil we all know as "kicking puppies". Because it's not actual evil, but merely erratic behaviour, it ends up being disruptive for the game.

Which brings us to the second group, the one that hides behind their characters actions. Most times it's some kind of social power-play outside the game. They can be spotted fairly easily from the first group - the first group will cease when you point out how disruptive they're being, the second group will start arguing and defending their actions.

Because of the potentially disruptive nature of these characters, they are perhaps the ones where you need to work closest with your DM to make it work. But they can also lead to the most satisfying and dramatic moments in the game too.

[Mordante]

I'm actually thinking about playing an neutral evil bard in the future. If my GM allows it. She is not interested in doing honest work. Why work hard if you can seduce men into buying you gift.
Hopping from sugar daddy to sugar daddy. Promising them her body etc but each time they get close she disappears and if she gets the chance she will take a fair chunk of their money as well.

[Mr Adventurer]

I'm actually thinking about playing an neutral evil bard in the future. If my GM allows it. She is not interested in doing honest work. Why work hard if you can seduce men into buying you gift.
Hopping from sugar daddy to sugar daddy. Promising them her body etc but each time they get close she disappears and if she gets the chance she will take a fair chunk of their money as well.

This is a pretty shallow depiction of a stereotype that is often levelled at women; personally, I'd avoid it.

[ezekielraiden]

Missed this post originally, as I was just replying to the OP.


OK, first off, "murderhobos" are usually "good". Second murderhobos usually work just fine with most published modules. So this is doubly not really a valid reason.
Anyone who allows true murderhobos--people who indiscriminately kill, solely because the things they're killing happen to be in a dungeon, cave, or tomb--doesn't merit a Good alignment. If we're going to be taking Evil seriously, why should we allow caricatures of Good instead? Take both seriously.


1a- plot hooks

The character has to match the adventure. In particular, they have to match the plot hooks. So not all characters match all adventures. But that's a matter of personality much more than of alignment.
Alignment is a shorthand for personality. It's not perfect--the map is never the territory--but it is at least meant to be useful. I have only rarely had to discuss with players why they wanted to play Evil, and (almost) invariably it boiled down to a desired personality trait that wouldn't work with my character or the other players' characters in some way. (The "almost" is hardly a real exception--the char in question was very much a "at what point does an evil person decide to go good?" exploration, and he did eventually do so.)

But yes, I grant that "the character has to match the adventure." I find it extremely useful to tell my players, "No outright Evil characters." That succinctly communicates the kind of character personalities I am, and am not, willing to run for.


1b - bad adventure design

Some adventures are only written with "good" charters in mind, so their plot hooks only cover a very narrow range of characters. Which is especially bad when they don't telegraph this.
On the subject of "bad reasons," isn't this a bad one as well? Your problem is only when the adventure doesn't SAY that it was written for non-Evil PCs. That's just as much a non-reason as several of the ones you've had a problem with, because it only applies to a subset. Even if that subset is common, if you're going to quibble with reasons because they don't apply universally, that quibble should just as easily apply to your own reasoning.


2- Avoid in game fighting

As others have hinted at, the classic Lawful Good Paladin is actually the biggest cause of in-game fighting at many tables. In fact, it's all but designed to encourage this. Yet people (foolishly) don't (usually) ban Lawful Good.

Having moral compunctions that can put the character at odds with the party is the reason that allowing Good characters is bad for party unity. Evil has no such compunctions, and thus is much better for party unity.

Whether you believe my propaganda or not (I *am* batting for team Lawful Evil, after all), the point is, evil causing in-game fighting is purely a player problem / social contract problem. It happens at least as readily (and I contend moreso) with good characters with actual personalities and conflicting values than with evil characters with personalities.
I strongly disagree. Evil sees others as tools, exploiting others for their utility. Good--again, if we're taking it seriously, and not relying on caricatures--doesn't work that way; Good values other beings as ends in themselves, not merely as means. Serious Good should always at least try for unity and consensus, even when there is disagreement. Evil only does so if it is useful. That's a pretty serious threat to unity, as unity is most necessary when it restricts behavior.


3- Good taste

This is definitely a social contract thing. After all, there are plenty of evil things that the party is fighting, right? So those "bad taste" things would be present, right?

Obviously, can they shouldn't be - and this is a feature of the social contract, not of a lack of villainous NPCs.
You are neglecting the key difference between villainous NPCs and Evil PCs. A villainous NPC doesn't have personal agency behind it. They're not meant to be "equals" in the same way that the party members are to be equals. The party must, in at least some minimal way, "approve of" one another--there is no need to "approve of" literally any of the game's antagonists. So having a genuine serial killer (or manipulative loan shark or whatever other Evil you prefer) in your party? That means, at the very very least, you tolerate your allies engaging in that form of Dirty Business. That's uncomfortable for a LOT of people. It can drive people away from the game. Believe me, I have very nearly lost a group to that, and have several friends who *have* lost a group to it.


However, to be fair, even the OP seems to admit that their reasons do not apply to *all* evil characters. So, although they don't explicitly say so, what they've given is no reason to ban *evil*, but to ban specific implementations / specific characteristics / specific characters.
I have found that so many specific implementations, characteristics, and characters with the "Evil" tag have been a problem, that it is both easier and more effective to just tell players, "Please don't play Evil characters. If you want to play an Evil character, we can try to come to an agreement, but you're not going to be capital-E Evil, and there will have to be limits, otherwise I won't run the game for you."


1- Misunderstanding

This is actually the biggest reason people ban evil. They only understand one kind of evil - or their players similarly misunderstand evil - and so they throw the baby out with the bathwater, banning evil rather than calling out what they don't want.
Honest question: can you sketch some examples of anything else? There's a reason I said the only types of Evil I could envision were either inappropriate (serial killers etc.), non-adventuring (loan sharks, corrupt businessmen, etc.), or numbingly banal (grimdark edgelords). I'd genuinely like to see something that is still capital-E Evil that isn't one of those three things. It's unlikely, but at least *possible* that you could convince me to allow Evil characters in future games!


2 - Laziness

I was tempted to include this under #1, but I feel that this deserves its own heading. Some GMs know that some evil is perfectly playable, but, because some isn't, they lazily throw the baby out with the bathwater, rather than banning the specific problems.
I've seen, dealt with, and heard of too many problems with Evil. In fact, most of the LG examples you gave? Yeah, those are not LG characters in my book. They're Lawful Evil, but have it in their heads that they're actually LG. So you may see why some of your arguments not only don't phase me, but feel like a *defense* of my position. The alignment descriptors should not just be team labels. They should matter, have observable weight.


3- Motivation

Um… actually, good characters are usually reactive, whereas evil characters usually are much more self-motivated. So I'm not sure where this complaint comes from.
Why is "reactive" a problem? Motivation is simply the reason why you do, not whether you take the initiative. (Also...reactive and self-motivated aren't antonyms, so I'm super confused here.)

Good adventurers do what they do because they have an internal motive that isn't self-interest. They are drawn out of sedentary life by the need to help others, to stop harms to others, and to correct perceived injustice as best as they are able. Evil characters--at least, in my experience--are only motivated when it expressly and directly empowers or threatens themselves. Evil characters rarely, if ever, have the foresight or acumen to consider things like earning a positive reputation or gaining the loyalty of others, because that requires, y'know, being nice to people and being unselfish in the now. Intellectual Evil takes a long time to set up, and IME almost all players that play Evil don't want to wait months or years to get to call the chips and force their will on others--they want it, if not RIGHT NOW, then very soon. Ironically, because of this, Good is actually the *more* rewarding, *more* "instant-gratification," because you get the warm fuzzies for doing a good deed immediately.


See, evil will have your back, and do whatever is necessary for your safety. Good? Eh, they only kinda sorta have your back, until their morals get in the way.
Unless you aren't worth it. That's the crux of the problem, isn't it? Banal Evil--which is the vast vast vast (etc. ad infinitum) majority of Evil I encounter when interacting with TTRPG players--will drop you like a sack of bricks if it inconveniences them for more than a few minutes. Intellectual Evil will only invest in something up to the point where it continues to be a positive gain. The moment intellectual Evil realizes a "friend" is more trouble than they're worth? They'll drop you and never look back. Why should they? You're a calculable hindrance.

Good won't use literally every available means to acheive a goal, you're correct. I wouldn't *want* my allies to torture children in order to free me from unjust imprisonment. And I'm pretty sure most people wouldn't want that...so it doesn't sound like much of a problem that Good friends won't use literally every means, when a lot of the means entailed in that "literally" are explicitly unacceptable. And since Good friends are a lot less likely to apply a brutal calculus of loyalty...


So, why should you ban evil?

1 - Maturity

Simply put, if you or your players cannot handle it maturely, then you probably shouldn't be playing with it, outside a one-shot to test to see if you've grown up.
Certainly. I would argue that Evil requires a greater degree of maturity than Good, mostly due to that "I value people solely for their utility" problem, as opposed to the latter's "I value people in and of themselves." And that difference seems a good reason why you see Evil banned so often: immature players are more likely to cooperate and function if they are playing Good or Neutral characters than if they are playin Evil characters. Highly mature players will play any alignment equally well, but that means highly mature players have no impact on the decision whether or not to permit Evil characters. The immature ones heavily slant it toward Good (and specifically Neutral Good; both Chaotic and Lawful require caution and thought that the extremely immature often lack.)


2 - Theme

Sometimes, you really want the theme to be enjoy good heroes. However, I must point out, that needn't preclude evil characters: the Autobots had Mirage (lacked the empathy to understand why they were protecting humans) & Grimlock (who didn't care if the Earth was destroyed… until it was pointed out that he was on Earth), after all.

So theme is a "yes, but…"
Everything I know about these characters--which, I admit, is heavily drawing on a friend of mine who is EXTREMELY into Transformers--says that they are not Evil. Grimlock is either so mentally deficient that he's not *able* to think morally, or merely ambitious and demanding respect/justification in those continuities where his mind is strong enough to have moral thoughts. Mirage's lack of empathy certainly makes him non-Good, but lacking empathy doesn't automatically make you Evil--everything I can see, and have been told, about him instead says that he's either Unaligned, or perhaps Lawful Neutral, not really Evil.

[Tvtyrant]

Probably because alignment is badly defined at best, and Good includes a lot of evil people. Evil in D&D is basically cartoonishly evil, and cartoonish levels of evil don't add much to a game. Committing atrocities, betraying each other, etc.

Finding flimsy pretexts for killing people is already a good or neutral path in D&D, robbery is chaotic, Evil is confined to the really awful people. If they don't deserve to go to Baator, the Abyss, etc then they weren't actually Evil.

[D+1]

Probably because alignment is badly defined at best, and Good includes a lot of evil people.If the latter is true then you're using VERY bad definitions of good and evil to be sure.

[PoeticallyPsyco]

Honest question: can you sketch some examples of anything else? There's a reason I said the only types of Evil I could envision were either inappropriate (serial killers etc.), non-adventuring (loan sharks, corrupt businessmen, etc.), or numbingly banal (grimdark edgelords). I'd genuinely like to see something that is still capital-E Evil that isn't one of those three things. It's unlikely, but at least *possible* that you could convince me to allow Evil characters in future games!

There have been a couple of excellent handbooks on playing evil characters of various flavors, including Red Fel's guide to Lawful Evil (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?448542-Compliance-Will-Be-Rewarded-A-Guide-to-Lawful-Evil), Thealtruisticorc's guide to Chaotic Evil (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?446414-No-Limits-No-Regrets-A-guide-to-the-Chaotic-Evil-alignment), and Mrs Kat's guide to Neutral Evil (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?449418-By-NE-means-necessary-a-guide-to-Neutral-Evil) (which I haven't actually read yet, just figure I'd see if there was a NE handbook for completeness' sake and it turned out there was).

All of them have a list of archetypal character types within the alignment; of these, I'd say that (of the ones I've actually read) the best suited to PCs are, in descending order of viability, The Dark Knight (LE, motivated by friendship with their comrades to do the dirty work 'necessary' to keep them alive and well), The Dragon (LE, devoted to a master; as long as the master's goals align with those of the party you're pretty much set, and note that the master doesn't necessarily have to be evil), The Behemoth (CE, evil and flaunts it, bombastic and charismatic to smooth over affronts they cause with the rest of the party, as long as their personal goals require remaining on good terms with them). Really, a lot of these archetypes could be made to work, but I think the above three would take the least effort.



For basically any evil character in a campaign (even evil campaigns, if you want to maintain any semblance of party cohesion), you need to answer three questions. Note that there will likely be some overlap between the three answers, and ideally there will be multiple answers to each question for a given character.

1. Why does this character stick with the party? This can be because it benefits their mid-/long-term goals goals (slaying a dragon for its treasure is a lot easier with 2+ capable teammates by your side), because it's a short term necessity ("I hate you and everything you stand for, but if we don't work together we're never escaping this prison. Truce until we're all free men."), or because they have a genuine attachment to their party members (which is fairly easy to role-play forming during the other two motivations even if you don't start with it in place due to backstory). The Dragon joins the party to further their master's plans, the Behemoth could to further their own, and any character can stick with a party because they genuinely like their comrades and want to help them succeed (this is often the defining motivation of the Dark Knight).

2. Why do they toe the line? Any evil character in a good party is going to have to restrain themselves from acts of villainy, or party conflict is inevitable. The Dark Knight restrains themselves because a) they don't want conflict with their friends and b) because their villainy is almost by definition limited to the most extreme situations; they're defined by being willing to cross any line for the good of the cause/their friends, but they typically don't actually want to cross those lines (note that because they don't want to hurt their friends they will also often try to cover up their (arguably) necessary evils). The Dragon is evil not because they delight in kicking puppies, but because they are utterly ruthless in pursuit of their goals and don't care how moral they have to be to accomplish them; all the party has to do to keep them in order is present reasonably effective alternatives to evil solutions for a given problem and the Dragon will have no legitimate reason to execute their evil/pragmatic solution (even if they might want to, without a practical justification they'll yield for the sake of party cohesion). And any evil character with even a modicum of intelligence and intuition will avoid doing anything too evil if their goals require being a member of this good party.

3. Why does the party tolerate them? Especially if they do cross the line? There are many possible answers to this, but all the ones I can think of boil down to just three. Friendship; no one wants to leave their friend out to dry, no matter how justified it may be. Competence/respect; yes the character is evil, but their benefit to the team (and by extension the cause of Good) outweighs their few infractions. And redemption; good characters will want to redeem an evil character if it looks like that's possible (think Zuko; the boy burned a swath of destruction wherever he went and didn't even care about his own men at first, but who in the audience wasn't rooting for him to turn good from about episode 4 onward?). EDIT: One more; pure evil villains are fun, without sympathetic motivations, backstory, or concern for others to weigh down and complicate their raw charisma, and the sheer joy they take in what they do can be infectious.



Let's have an example. (Yes I am going to talk about Locus again; I know I already mentioned him upthread, but he's too perfect an example of an evil character meshing well with a party to pass up). Locus doesn't fit neatly into any of the categories I mentioned; he looks a lot like a Behemoth, but is constructed out of a mix of Broken (CE) and Hedonist (a CN archetype), with a little Experimentalist (CE) thrown in for flavor; or to put it more bluntly, he's a sociopath incapable of guilt, who doesn't really 'get' emotions other than fear or pain (though he's fascinated by emotions of all kinds), who has precisely zero regard for the sanctity of life - including his own - that can't be classified as "a child" (due to his backstory; won't go into it here because it's a redeeming feature and not part of his villainy), and who is motivated almost entirely by a desire to keep himself entertained. If I had to put an alignment on him, it would be Chaotic Evil, or possibly Neutral Evil.

Why does he stick with the party? Because adventurers are constantly going to interesting places and facing interesting challenges; that's basically Locus' dream job, with the added benefits that he's getting paid, doesn't have to do any research himself to find these interesting events, and is a respected member of society rather than being hunted down for being an engine of indiscriminate destruction (which is what would surely happen if he was forced to make his own entertainment).

Why does he toe the line? Because while he's dangerously close to being Stupid Evil, Locus is neither Chaotic Stupid nor stupid in general. As long as the excitement keeps flowing, he's more than happy to restrain himself to targets the party actually wants dead (or terrified, in a few memorable cases).

Why does the party tolerate him? Admittedly, a part of this is that the party was far closer to neutral than to good. It was partly because he was terrifyingly competent, tanking blows that would kill other party members (Locus didn't care how much damage he took because he wasn't at all afraid of dying), dishing out large amounts of damage, and ending any interrogations pretty much before they started (when your interrogator is 100% willing to cut off your face and wear it as a mask out of a belief that that would make you feel more comfortable telling him secrets, you spill the beans before he can so much as reach for his knife). Partly it was because he was fun, possessed of an infectious delight in even the worst situations, no matter how dire, no matter how gruesome. But mostly it was because he wasn't a problematic party member. He toed the line, his few slip-ups were both fairly minor (especially compared to the Chaotic Stupid also in the party) and accidental, he risked himself so his teammates wouldn't have to, and he was genuinely devoted to both the party's success and its cohesion; he was essentially the perfect party member, despite being blatantly evil.



So yeah, there you have it. Give the evil character reasons to join and maintain their relationship with the party, and have them give the party reasons to keep them around. Throw in a gradual but genuine friendship with the party members (even sociopaths are capable of forming emotional bonds with others) and a redeeming trait or two (for Locus it was that he was obsessively protective of children, to the point where you could legitimately consider him Chaotic Good when a child was in the picture), and you've got yourself a perfectly functional Token Evil Teammate.

[TheYell]

Hopping from sugar daddy to sugar daddy. Promising them her body etc but each time they get close she disappears and if she gets the chance she will take a fair chunk of their money as well.

You're probably playing with a bunch of nerds and they may not enjoy giving you the opportunity to role-play bad relationships repeatedly.

[ezekielraiden]

@PoeticallyPsyco

Alright. I'm going to, unfortunately, have to trot out a thing what makes tons of controversy, I suspect, but.

I have read through the entirety of the guide to Lawful Evil, and frankly? I don't see how the example archetypes fail to fit into what I've said. Each of them appears to be either:
Not actually capital-E Evil. (E.g. the Dark Knight, the Bureaucrat, certain Executives and Aliens)
Not actually an adventurer (the Executive, the Bureaucrat, the Prince, the Alien, the Dragon)
Not in good taste (the Bad Cop, the Zealot)
Uninteresting (the Cartoon, the unlisted immature types that I'll call "The Caricature," certain forms of Bad Cop)
And the problem frequently becomes that, when you pull something out of the row it's in, you run afoul of one of the other problems, or you drop the archetype. An actually-capital-E-Evil Executive or Bureaucrat treads on Zealot or Bad Cop--in other words, by becoming genuinely Evil, they run an ENORMOUS risk of falling into "uninteresting" (Caricature/Cartoon). If you remove the Dragon from the sedentary power structure, is the character still in that archetype? I'd argue no. Etc.

(As an aside: the Rival is extremely interesting, and a GREAT concept for a villain...who pretty much explicitly can't be someone in the party, because the archetype specifically requires opposing the party in a particular way. One could argue that, for example, Zuko from ATLA is The Rival up until his Heel-Face Turn--and the moment he joins the party, The Rival ceases to apply. This is an unusual example of #2--"not actually an adventurer"--that features no connection to an in-place power-structure at all, showing that it's not strictly about not being part of a power structure, but rather not having the characteristics that fit with being in an adventuring party. The Alien may also fit this mold, as if they're genuinely Alien, it's hard to see how the party and the Alien can have reliable points of agreement--being Alien necessitates very few, if any, such points of agreement.)

Part of the problem is...that guide has an excessively loose perspective on Evil. The author keeps using the phrase "arbitrary alignment," but fails to define it anywhere, and as a result I keep feeling REALLY confused when the author calls things that look objectively Good as "Evil" solely because they...actually strive for their goals rather than faffing about?? Like, here's a quote.

Dark Knights are a wonderful choice in a party, even a party of Good characters, because they tend to put others before themselves. One would think this a fairly un-LE trait, but arbitrary alignment being what it is, it works. To make such a character even more compelling, consider making him a gentle soul, inwardly mourning each step he feels he must take to protect that about which he cares.
If that "inwardly mourning" is genuine, the character has to be (at least eventually) on a trajectory to non-Evil. Evil doesn't--can't--repent, can't even desire repentance, by Red Fel's own logic (the part about "Apologies" and how Evil never gives them because Evil "knows" it is right, and you never apologize for being right). So...if they actually do put others before themselves, and actually do mourn their actions, I can't see them as Evil. So any Dark Knight, as far as I'm concerned, is either on a course for shedding her Evil (meaning I can't really call her capital-E Evil), or on a course for sticking to that Evil until it's revealed as a betrayal of trust. That betrayal is exactly an "in bad taste" situation, because I am emphatically against PCs betraying PCs, even in well-meaning ways, and will not facilitate such betrayal.

So...yeah. I stick to my original claim. A character that is truly Evil, Evil worthy of the capitalized name, is either a non-adventurer, doing things that are in bad taste,* or cartoonish/uninteresting. A character that starts off in one of those categories, and then tries to break out of it, will inevitably fall into one of the others...or fall out of Evil-worthy-of-the-name.

*Note that I completely disagree with Quertus' assertion that actions by NPCs and actions by PCs have the same weight when it comes to bad taste. Because NPCs aren't required to be friends/associates/comrades, they can do things that the players disapprove of. There isn't another player's agency behind that NPC, and the PCs aren't implicitly endorsing that NPC's behavior because they don't adventure together. By adventuring together with a PC who does these things, they are tacitly communicating, "I'm okay with this," and that squicks a lot of people out in ways that NPCs never will. E.g. you can have slavers as your NPC villains, and that's fine, because that means the party can stand united against slavery. But if one of the PCs is a slaver...even if they never do any slavery stuff in front of the other PCs...those other PCs are essentially saying, "I'm okay with what you do. I won't try to stop that from happening." And that implication, exclusively present with intra-party characters rather than out-of-party characters, is what makes all the difference when it comes to the "bad taste" problem.

[TheYell]

well then there's no point calling on us to explain the Guide to Lawful Evil

RED FEL
RED FEL
RED FEL

[PoeticallyPsyco]

Not actually capital-E Evil. (E.g. the Dark Knight, the Bureaucrat, certain Executives and Aliens)
Not actually an adventurer (the Executive, the Bureaucrat, the Prince, the Alien, the Dragon)
Not in good taste (the Bad Cop, the Zealot)
Uninteresting (the Cartoon, the unlisted immature types that I'll call "The Caricature," certain forms of Bad Cop)
And the problem frequently becomes that, when you pull something out of the row it's in, you run afoul of one of the other problems, or you drop the archetype. An actually-capital-E-Evil Executive or Bureaucrat treads on Zealot or Bad Cop--in other words, by becoming genuinely Evil, they run an ENORMOUS risk of falling into "uninteresting" (Caricature/Cartoon). If you remove the Dragon from the sedentary power structure, is the character still in that archetype? I'd argue no. Etc.

Hmm, I can definitely see where you're coming from. How are you defining Capital E "Evil", BTW? If you take it to mean actually committing truly heinous deeds (e.g. slavery), then I'd agree that pretty much by definition such a character will never mesh with a Good party. If you take it to mean merely capable of and willing to perform such deeds, then good (albeit tricky) role-playing can remind your party members that your character is very much evil without ever having to follow through and commit those deeds (for instance, suggesting something ruthless/psychotic/evil and then backing down when the party presents alternatives or simply vetoes it on grounds of being evil, or my earlier example of creating a threat terrifying enough that no one in their right mind would call your bluff because your character isn't bluffing). You can reinforce that capacity for 'greater evil' by actually performing more acceptable lesser evils; for example, Locus's first and most reliable trick was a fighting style that relied on causing agonizing pain to debuff his enemies (he was in Numenara, but in D&D you could accomplish the same thing by refluffing spells like ray of enfeeblement or hideous laughter or even jig of the waves, as well as the various Ambush feats, and of course the already [Evil] spells). Obviously this does run the risk of being in bad taste, but is far less likely to break the immersion or otherwise spoil the fun of other players.

As for the Dragon, I don't think I agree that such a character can't be an adventurer. It's ultimately not that different from any other character that's sworn an oath to a higher power (in terms of playability, not alignment hopefully). It would rely a lot on the DM either dictating your boss's instructions such that they remain in line with the goals of the group or letting you decide what your boss's instructions are for the same reason (barring the occasional instance where the instructions clash with the group and you have to find a way to achieve both, but that would be a deliberate exception rather than a systemic problem). Which runs back into the problem of creating more work for the DM and/or placing a lot of trust in the maturity of the player, but it is doable.

So yeah, in short I do think having an Evil character in a good or neutral party is possible, though it carries unique difficulties and risks.

[Particle_Man]

There is also the problem that some evil characters like clerics with the evil domain, evil crusaders, evil soulborn and incarnates, Pathfinder antipaladins, etc., have it as part of their character mandate to increase evil in the world (like some sort of anti-utilitarian) or Doing Evil (like some sort of anti-Kantian) which can quickly go over the top, particularly if they lose their kewl powers if they do too many (or in some cases any) genuinely good acts.

On the other hand, if someone wanted to play, say, a character with the prestige class assassin as part of its build, but does not particularly want to play an evil character, one solution is to take a page from OD&D and let assassins be non-evil (albeit also non-good).

[hamishspence]

There is also the problem that some evil characters like clerics with the evil domain, evil crusaders, evil soulborn and incarnates, Pathfinder antipaladins, etc., have it as part of their character mandate to increase evil in the world (like some sort of anti-utilitarian) or Doing Evil (like some sort of anti-Kantian) which can quickly go over the top, particularly if they lose their kewl powers if they do too many (or in some cases any) genuinely good acts.



Off-hand, as far as I can tell, only the Paladin of Tyranny and Paladin of Slaughter lose their powers for committing any Good act.

Even the classes and feats from BoVD, are not lost automatically on committing a Good act, the way the powers of those two are.



If that "inwardly mourning" is genuine, the character has to be (at least eventually) on a trajectory to non-Evil. Evil doesn't--can't--repent, can't even desire repentance, by Red Fel's own logic (the part about "Apologies" and how Evil never gives them because Evil "knows" it is right, and you never apologize for being right). So...if they actually do put others before themselves, and actually do mourn their actions, I can't see them as Evil.

Evil alignment, at least in some cases, is defined by the fact that the character consistently commits evil deeds. How the character feels about their evil deeds, is irrelevant, if their feelings fail to change their pattern of behaviour.

Altruism is traditionally a Good trait - but it is not enough to pull a character out of Evil alignment, in the face of a pattern of Evil deeds.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Evil alignment, at least in some cases, is defined by the fact that the character consistently commits evil deeds. How the character feels about their evil deeds, is irrelevant, if their feelings fail to change their pattern of behaviour.

Altruism is traditionally a Good trait - but it is not enough to pull a character out of Evil alignment, in the face of a pattern of Evil deeds.

But here's the thing. If the character has a pattern of Evil deeds strong enough to make them truly Evil in the face of genuine altruism and real sorrow (not just sorrow for being caught) for their wrong acts, one (or both) of two things is true:
1) they're crazy. Seriously insane. That kind of knowing act-intent dissonance can't be maintained for long in normal people. Either they stop feeling sorry (and slide down the slippery slope to "not a good-party-friendly character") or they stop doing the evil.
2) not a good-party-friendly character in the first place, because the kinds of evil acts they're doing are so heinous that no non-evil character can stomach being associated with them. And this plays into #1, because anyone willing to do those acts enough to make a pattern out of it either won't feel sincere remorse after a while or will cross the line into insanity.

Sure, you can have an "informed evil" character without treading on sensibilities. The kind who (offscreen only) kicks puppies or says mean things to people. But you can't have a genuinely evil, genuinely repentant character without them being insane. At least as far as I see it.

And as for evil being more proactive...my most proactive party has been the one that's been the most good. I intended for the campaign to focus on one little area and be mostly reactive; they transmuted it into going out and founding a UN-like body to bind disparate nations together. Everyone else had to react to them, not the other way around. And my least proactive party (one of my current ones) is also the closest to evil I've had. They're driven mostly by their base desires (money, sex, power, revenge) and don't really have much of a plan or goals other than get rich, get lucky, and get out of this place. So IMX there's little to no correlation between proactivity and evil or reactivity and good.

[ChudoJogurt]

I think one of the aspects of the problem was not considered, and that's the fact that most societies players will have to live in and interact with are generally Good societies. Or at least sort-of good. The kind where there are laws against theft, murder, arson and jaywalking, and generally where evil things are unlawful and even when legal (or unproven) having a reputation for them may exclude the characters from polite society.

And if even one character is hunted for or excluded from attending social events, at best this leads to DM having to split his attention, or at worst to player being excluded. Alternatively - the whole party switches from "Saving this kingdom" to "Being on the Run".

This problem, much like party cohesion problem, is often ameliorated when playing in the Evil or at least largely dickish societies, where burning ocasional peasant, theft and backstabbery are not just tolerated, but par for the course. And I don't see much trouble playing Evil party in an Evil society, as long as they have the wits and good sense not to piss off someone powerful just for the evlulz.

[PhoenixPhyre]

And if even one character is hunted for or excluded from attending social events, at best this leads to DM having to split his attention, or at worst to player being excluded. Alternatively - the whole party switches from "Saving this kingdom" to "Being on the Run".


Agreed. If my evil-leaning party takes the tack I'm anticipating them taking, then this will figure in relatively prominently. Their superiors and the group they're ostensibly working for looks rather unkindly on knowingly releasing sealed evils (who were sealed for very good reasons), especially for the purpose of shacking up with a pair of half-devil twins (and releasing those on the world as well).

At best (if they can make a good case that they didn't know), they'll get shunted off to less desirable assignments or asked to resign. At worst, they'll be hunted fugitives.

[hamishspence]

But here's the thing. If the character has a pattern of Evil deeds strong enough to make them truly Evil in the face of genuine altruism and real sorrow (not just sorrow for being caught) for their wrong acts, one (or both) of two things is true:
1) they're crazy. Seriously insane. That kind of knowing act-intent dissonance can't be maintained for long in normal people. Either they stop feeling sorry (and slide down the slippery slope to "not a good-party-friendly character") or they stop doing the evil.
2) not a good-party-friendly character in the first place, because the kinds of evil acts they're doing are so heinous that no non-evil character can stomach being associated with them. And this plays into #1, because anyone willing to do those acts enough to make a pattern out of it either won't feel sincere remorse after a while or will cross the line into insanity.

Typically, they would commit evil acts, against villains and do genuine altruism to everybody who is not a villain.

Exactly what the evil deeds would be, might vary from party to party. Some might specialise in damaging the souls of villains (there's a feat in Champions of Ruin for fighters who want to tear bits of the soul of an enemy apart, with their sword). Others might torture. Others might just use Evil magic. The point being that the pattern is firmly established.

[HeraldOfExius]

But here's the thing. If the character has a pattern of Evil deeds strong enough to make them truly Evil in the face of genuine altruism and real sorrow (not just sorrow for being caught) for their wrong acts, one (or both) of two things is true:
1) they're crazy. Seriously insane. That kind of knowing act-intent dissonance can't be maintained for long in normal people. Either they stop feeling sorry (and slide down the slippery slope to "not a good-party-friendly character") or they stop doing the evil.
2) not a good-party-friendly character in the first place, because the kinds of evil acts they're doing are so heinous that no non-evil character can stomach being associated with them. And this plays into #1, because anyone willing to do those acts enough to make a pattern out of it either won't feel sincere remorse after a while or will cross the line into insanity.

3) they are committing the sunk cost fallacy. They feel bad about what they have done, but they think that not continuing down that road would make everything they've already done a waste. Admittedly this could be considered a type of insanity, but it allows them to continue committing evil despite having regrets.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Typically, they would commit evil acts, against villains and do genuine altruism to everybody who is not a villain.

Exactly what the evil deeds would be, might vary from party to party. Some might specialise in damaging the souls of villains (there's a feat in Champions of Ruin for fighters who want to tear bits of the soul of an enemy apart, with their sword). Others might torture. Others might just use Evil magic. The point being that the pattern is firmly established.

But doing things you know are wrong, feeling repentant about them, and still doing them is a recipe for cognitive dissonance. And justifying it with "they're bad guys" is a very slippery slope (hint: who counts as a villain?). Only flat, unrealistic characters (or insane ones) can sustain that without sliding one way or another (either getting hardened to the evil or stopping the action out of remorse).

Either that, or a good party won't want to be around people who employ torture, destroy souls (an act so evil that even demons shy away from it), or who are contaminating everything around them with Evil. A characteristic of good people is that they try to do good even to villains. For a group to be truly good, the ends can't justify the means.

[hamishspence]

An exalted Good party, or a party with paladin levels, won't be able to tolerate the Evil hero, no matter how careful they are about Not Hurting The Innocent. They would either ask them to leave, or start attempting to stop their Evil acts.

But an "only just Good", or Neutral, party, might be able to sustain association with the character for a while, even if not permanently.

An element of "we won't do Evil ourselves, but we won't stop others from doing it" may apply.

[PhoenixPhyre]

An exalted Good party, or a party with paladin levels, won't be able to tolerate the Evil hero, no matter how careful they are about Not Hurting The Innocent. They would either ask them to leave, or start attempting to stop their Evil acts.

But an "only just Good", or Neutral, party, might be able to sustain association with the character for a while, even if not permanently.

An element of "we won't do Evil ourselves, but we won't stop others from doing it" may apply.

I would consider "won't stop our allies from doing evil" to be being willing to profit from others evil deeds. Which is not the actions of a good person at all. By that standard, most mob bosses were good not evil because they, themselves, didn't kill anyone. Or even order them killed. Their underlings just "did what had to be done".

Good people don't stand around and wink at evil. Sure, they might not be able to stop all of it, but they certainly won't willingly associate with unrepentant evils. They may (grudgingly, and only in great need) ally with a lesser evil against a greater evil, but will try to restrain the lesser evil from their evil ways wherever possible. Because one of the fundamental definitions of evil is being willing to hurt innocents. And that's something that Good cannot tolerate.


The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.

[Conradine]

In my opinion, the single thing which gives Evil alignment versatility is that they need not to be consistent.

A Good character needs to avoid evil behiavour consistently, or he'll be Good no more.
Evil characters needs to have done evil just once ( if heinous enough ) and to never repent; then they're free to do all the Good deeds that they find useful , or even funny, and they'll stay evil.

It's easy to find advantages in joining an adventuring party: you grow in power, you gain riches, you can even achieve the Villain With Good Publicity status. The Evil deeds can be a thing of the past and, as long there's no repentance they stays with you forever.

---

Although characters who play evil that way are almost only those who did Evil for convenience and profit, rather than pleasure or idealistic evil. Like an ex loan shark / smuggler / fence / slave trader who paid his shiny +1 full plate with dirty money.

[hamishspence]

Because one of the fundamental definitions of evil is being willing to hurt innocents. And that's something that Good cannot tolerate.

It is possible for a deed to be Evil even if the victim was not Innocent. "Punish those that hurt the innocent" is the paladin's credo, but Good characters in general should subscribe to it.

But there's no requirement to punish the evil hero for torturing a villain. Try to stop them, maybe, but not punish them afterwards.


I will agree that such Good characters cannot be Exalted good - they will be very close to the Good/Neutral border, and in constant danger of slipping across it.

[PhoenixPhyre]

It is possible for a deed to be Evil even if the victim was not Innocent. "Punish those that hurt the innocent" is the paladin's credo, but Good characters in general should subscribe to it.

But there's no requirement to punish the evil hero for torturing a villain. Try to stop them, maybe, but not punish them afterwards.


I will agree that such Good characters cannot be Exalted good - they will be very close to the Good/Neutral border, and in constant danger of slipping across it.

You don't have to punish them, but if you're associating with them and condoning their evil acts (by turning an intentional blind eye) as you would have to in order to be in the same party for very long at all, you're not good at all. Neutral at best.

Walking out of a room and leaving your (known) evil partner in there to torture the prisoner is not a good act even if you don't know he's going to torture them. I'd place it as evil, personally. You're condoning it, you're giving it an opportunity to flourish. A good person would not let the evil person be in the room or would act to prevent them from committing evil acts. Willful ignorance of evil acts is an evil pattern of behavior. Made exceptionally more so by profiting by those evil acts. A fence of stolen goods (even if he only has good reason to suspect they're stolen) is just as morally complicit in the theft as the thief, in my book. They're a necessary part of the evil culture and make it possible (and dramatically increase its prevalence).

George the Good can team up with Evan the Evil if and only if Evan doesn't commit evil while they're together (or manages to do so in a way that George has not even the slightest possibility of noticing). There is no plausible deniability for ignoring evil acts--if a good person knows they're happening and has the power to stop them (or even reduce them), he should do so. This will inevitably cause intra-party conflict. Neutral can coexist with the milder forms of evil just fine, but is at risk for slipping into evil themselves

[hamishspence]

Some [Evil] tagged acts are the sort of thing that a Good character will not violently try to stop. They might protest, object, criticise - but they won't attack the Evildoer in order to stop them from doing it.

[Telonius]

well then there's no point calling on us to explain the Guide to Lawful Evil

RED FEL
RED FEL
RED FEL

Sometimes I feel like I'm his Silver Surfer...


A hard ban on Evil characters can be (can be, not is) a misguided attempt to solve an out-of-character problem using an in-character solution. I think it's often a "guilt by association" thing. People who are going to disrupt a campaign often play characters who act in ways that the game would define as Evil. While it's perfectly possible to disrupt a game while playing a Neutral or Good character, it takes more effort. Some DMs don't want to take the time to deal with the OOC issue, and feel more comfortable with a more passive-aggressive ban on an alignment.

Personally I think they should be banning the disruptive behavior, rather than the alignment. Evil does not equal, "does not play well with others." Red Fel's guide goes into extremely good detail about how to avoid that trap as Lawful Evil, but even Chaotic Evil doesn't require you to be a psycho that stabs everybody, all the time.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Some [Evil] tagged acts are the sort of thing that a Good character will not violently try to stop. They might protest, object, criticise - but they won't attack the Evildoer in order to stop them from doing it.

I never said they would. But if someone tries to do them repeatedly and won't stop after you object, you certainly will disassociate yourself from them and try to work against them if possible. You wouldn't turn a blind eye and simply say "well, I'm not doing it, so my hands are clean."

[hamishspence]

You wouldn't turn a blind eye and simply say "well, I'm not doing it, so my hands are clean."

Some characters at the shadier end of Good, will.

From Origin of PCs, there was Roy's first adventuring party, which included a paladin, and which tried to get Durkon killed by not helping him when help was needed - and tried to talk Roy into doing the same.

The paladin: "I'd kill him myself, but I need to keep a Lawful Good alignment to keep the paladin class. Damn inconvenient, if you ask me."

Good is a fairly broad zone. What you're describing is closer to Exalted Good than to regular Good.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Some characters at the shadier end of Good, will.

From Origin of PCs, there was Roy's first adventuring party, which included a paladin, and which tried to get Durkon killed by not helping him when help was needed - and tried to talk Roy into doing the same.

The paladin: "I'd kill him myself, but I need to keep a Lawful Good alignment to keep the paladin class. Damn inconvenient, if you ask me."

Good is a fairly broad zone. What you're describing is closer to Exalted Good than to regular Good.

That argument "my hands are clean" is not something I can credit as being good in any sense. No one I can call good would put up with "tearing off a prisoner's face and wearing it as a mask", as was suggested upthread. And even someone who would suggest such things in earnest should be repellant to anyone who calls themselves good. You may have to accept that you can't do anything about it, but it should be horrific and you should seek atonement, even if the victim is scum.

[patchyman]

If you take it to mean merely capable of and willing to perform such deeds, then good (albeit tricky) role-playing can remind your party members that your character is very much evil without ever having to follow through and commit those deeds (for instance, suggesting something ruthless/psychotic/evil and then backing down when the party presents alternatives or simply vetoes it on grounds of being evil, or my earlier example of creating a threat terrifying enough that no one in their right mind would call your bluff because your character isn't bluffing).

I tried this once: it didn’t work. My LE character took a prisoner and proposed interrogating him. My character (who was sworn to the party paladin), was prepared to back down at the first sign of resistance. The Psladin and the rest of the party (all never-split-the-party types) immediately decided to go exploring out of earshot.

[NNescio]

I tried this once: it didn’t work. My LE character took a prisoner and proposed interrogating him. My character (who was sworn to the party paladin), was prepared to back down at the first sign of resistance. The Psladin and the rest of the party (all never-split-the-party types) immediately decided to go exploring out of earshot.

It would be funny if you never actually "interrogated"* the prisoner but the party assumed you did.

(*Well, actual interrogation, yes, air-quotes interrogation-meaning-torture, no.)

[hamishspence]

No one I can call good would put up with "tearing off a prisoner's face and wearing it as a mask", as was suggested upthread. And even someone who would suggest such things in earnest should be repellant to anyone who calls themselves good.

"Good" or Good-ish characters with Psycho Sidekicks are fairly common in fiction though:

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PsychoSidekick

[patchyman]

In my opinion, the single thing which gives Evil alignment versatility is that they need not to be consistent.

You are not the only one to say this, but I disagree. Both Good and Evil characters have to be consistent to their personalities, and for any Good player who has to justify why he won’t kill an unarmed Joker, there is an Evil character justifying why he spends time with a bunch of do-gooders when evil pays more.

[LordBlades]

I strongly disagree. Evil sees others as tools, exploiting others for their utility. Good--again, if we're taking it seriously, and not relying on caricatures--doesn't work that way; Good values other beings as ends in themselves, not merely as means. Serious Good should always at least try for unity and consensus, even when there is disagreement. Evil only does so if it is useful. That's a pretty serious threat to unity, as unity is most necessary when it restricts behavior.

I also happen to think paladins are a pretty big problem in many, but not necessarily due to the LG alignment, but due to the code of conduct. There are several things in the game, out of which paladins are only the most obvious example (many Exalted feats are way worse in this regard for example) which encourage or even force the rest of the party to behave this way or else. A paladin is a huge reducer of agency for the entire party, and that in my experience often leads to conflicts.



The party must, in at least some minimal way, "approve of" one another--there is no need to "approve of" literally any of the game's antagonists. So having a genuine serial killer (or manipulative loan shark or whatever other Evil you prefer) in your party? That means, at the very very least, you tolerate your allies engaging in that form of Dirty Business. That's uncomfortable for a LOT of people. It can drive people away from the game. Believe me, I have very nearly lost a group to that, and have several friends who *have* lost a group to it.


IMO that's more of an issue of boundaries than Evil per se. Every group should know (discuss during session zero) what are the places where you simply shouldn't go because it makes group members uncomfortable. In my gaming experience for example, explicit or heavily implied sexual RP (especially when different races were involved) has been a way bigger issue in this regard than Evil acts.

[PhoenixPhyre]

"Good" or Good-ish characters with Psycho Sidekicks are fairly common in fiction though:

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PsychoSidekick

Sure, but those aren't really good characters by any standard I can support. They're deluding themselves into thinking they're good, sure. They do good acts. But they walk around with a known-vicious, known-man-eating beast at their heels not even on a leash and use them as weapons/threats. That's evil (or at least the shady side of neutral) in my book. Conspiracy to commit murder/torture/whatever is just as much a moral evil as is the underlying act. And all it takes to be a conspirator is one affirmative act. You "found an excuse to be absent" and your team member tortured a prisoner? You're culpable. You knew your partner liked to grind up puppies and snort the powder and took them to a puppy farm and left them alone with a grinder? You're culpable.

Good people make sacrifices to avoid evil. Yes, that may mean not being as "efficient" at fighting evil as you might be if you lowered your standards. But fighting evil with evil just makes the whole world evil. It doesn't make it better. Descending into the mire to wrestle with a pig is futile--you just get dirty and the pig enjoys it.

Yes, it's a high standard. Yes, most people can't meet it. And I'm fine with that. In my opinion, the vast majority of all mortals are somewhere in the Neutral part of the spectrum. They do evil, but not consistently. They do good, but not willfully or consistently. A very few, dedicated people get into the recognizably-Good or recognizably-Evil parts of the spectrum. But the middle few standard deviations are all in the Neutral zone. Same for law and chaos.

[hamishspence]

Yes, it's a high standard. Yes, most people can't meet it. And I'm fine with that. In my opinion, the vast majority of all mortals are somewhere in the Neutral part of the spectrum. They do evil, but not consistently. They do good, but not willfully or consistently. A very few, dedicated people get into the recognizably-Good or recognizably-Evil parts of the spectrum. But the middle few standard deviations are all in the Neutral zone. Same for law and chaos.
In my opinion, based on what's said in the splatbooks, Neutral is not significantly more common than Good or Evil are. Especially not in Eberron.

Maybe in standard campaigns, it might be slightly higher - but certainly not "the middle few standard deviations".

[Nebuul]

From my perspective, the issue is that evil characters are really, really hard to deal with in a practical way. Imagine a high-charisma evil warlock with at-will devil's whispers add crazy-high bluff. If that player wants to conquer the world politically, there isn't any defense other than "everyone in the world is immune to mind-effecting and has sense motive 40+" which is not fun for anyone. Even if certain key players are protected, there's an entire world that isn't.

Magic and social skills in d&d are broken. The only thing keeping it in check are that evil npcs exist to progress the story and good pcs have to follow certain rules to maintain their alignment. If either the evil npcs stopped being plot devices or the pcs stopped carrying about alignment, the game falls apart.

[Telonius]

From my perspective, the issue is that evil characters are really, really hard to deal with in a practical way. Imagine a high-charisma evil warlock with at-will devil's whispers add crazy-high bluff. If that player wants to conquer the world politically, there isn't any defense other than "everyone in the world is immune to mind-effecting and has sense motive 40+" which is not fun for anyone. Even if certain key players are protected, there's an entire world that isn't.

Magic and social skills in d&d are broken. The only thing keeping it in check are that evil npcs exist to progress the story and good pcs have to follow certain rules to maintain their alignment. If either the evil npcs stopped being plot devices or the pcs stopped carrying about alignment, the game falls apart.

That seems to be more of a problem with magic and social skills, than alignment specifically. There's nothing stopping a Chaotic Good Warlock from doing the same. The issue is more the disruptive behavior, than the alignment of the character who does this.

The campaign we're running right now, we're completely skewing high-charisma. We've got a True Neutral Sorcerer, a CN (edging to CE) Warlock/Cleric/Eldritch Disciple (Olidammara) with massive bonuses to Bluff, a CN (edging to CE) Bardblade (high-charisma, maxed ranks in Bluff), a Monk/Paladin (both with houseruled tweaks to the classes), and a pyromaniac Wizard. If we wanted to, we could burn down the world and have people cheering while we did it. But we don't, and that has nothing to do with our alignments.

[PhoenixPhyre]

In my opinion, based on what's said in the splatbooks, Neutral is not significantly more common than Good or Evil are. Especially not in Eberron.

Maybe in standard campaigns, it might be slightly higher - but certainly not "the middle few standard deviations".

And that's because the splat-book writers are trying to enforce symmetry-for-the-sake-of-symmetry, and in doing so making Good and Evil meaningless, arbitrary distinctions. Because based on actions, they contradict themselves. Most people don't act like the Good (or Evil) stated. They say that X% are good/evil/neutral, but their shown behaviors are much more Neutral by their own standards.

And even if you use those distinctions, you'd get most of the mortal "Good" or "Evil" population clustered, Canada-like, at the border.

[hamishspence]

And that's because the splat-book writers are trying to enforce symmetry-for-the-sake-of-symmetry, and in doing so making Good and Evil meaningless, arbitrary distinctions. Because based on actions, they contradict themselves. Most people don't act like the Good (or Evil) stated. They say that X% are good/evil/neutral, but their shown behaviors are much more Neutral by their own standards.

And even if you use those distinctions, you'd get most of the mortal "Good" or "Evil" population clustered, Canada-like, at the border.

IMO, most D&D falls somewhere between these two models:


Good, Neutral, and Evil humans occurring with roughly equal frequency,

Low Grade Evil Everywhere
In some campaigns, the common population is split roughly evenly among the various alignments - the kindly old grandmother who gives boiled sweets to children is Neutral Good and that charming rake down the pub is Chaotic Neutral. Similarly the thug lurking in the alleyway is Chaotic Evil, while the grasping landlord who throws granny out on the street because she's a copper behind on the rent is Lawful Evil.

In such a campaign up to a third of the population will detect as Evil to the paladin. This low grade Evil is a fact of life, and is not something the paladin can defeat. Certainly he should not draw his greatsword and chop the landlord in twain just because he has a mildly tainted aura. It might be appropriate for the paladin to use Diplomacy (or Intimidation) to steer the landlord toward the path of good but stronger action is not warranted.

In such a campaign detect evil cannot be used to infallibly detect villainy, as many people are a little bit evil. if he casts detect evil on a crowded street, about a third of the population will detect as faintly evil.
Neutral being significantly commoner than the others,

Evil As A Choice
A similar campaign set-up posits that most people are some variety of Neutral. The old granny might do good by being kind to people, but this is a far cry from capital-G Good, which implies a level of dedication, fervour and sacrifice which she does not possess. If on the other hand our granny brewed alchemical healing potions into those boiled sweets or took in and sheltered orphans and strays off the street, then she might qualify as truly Good.

Similarly, minor acts of cruelty and malice are not truly Evil on the cosmic scale. Our greedy and grasping landlord might be nasty and mean, but sending the bailiffs round to throw granny out might not qualify as Evil (although if granny is being thrown out into a chill winter or torrential storm, then that is tantamount to murder and would be Evil). In such a campaign, only significant acts of good or evil can tip a character from Neutrality to being truly Good or Evil.

if a paladin in this campaign uses detect evil on a crowded street, he will usually detect nothing, as true evil is rare. Anyone who detects as Evil, even faintly Evil, is probably a criminal, a terrible and wilful sinner, or both. Still, the paladin is not obligated to take action - in this campaign, detecting that someone is Evil is a warning, not a call to arms. The paladin should probably investigate this person and see if they pose a danger to the common folk, but he cannot automatically assume that this particular Evil person deserves to be dealt with immediately.

[Conradine]

Something that a consistent, believable Evil character would not do is to ( willingfully and freely ) keep an association with a group which do not benefit him or expose him to danger without reward ( or with too little reward ). Reputation can be a reward so it must not necessarily be money.

But these are quite reasonable requests than even Neutral or not-exalted Good may make.

The only kind of group which is probably 100% incompatible with an Evil character - even a mercenary, pratical, not crazy one - is an Exalted group of wannabe martyrs and saints ( I mean Risen Martyrs and template Saints ).

[Red Fel]

well then there's no point calling on us to explain the Guide to Lawful Evil

RED FEL
RED FEL
RED FEL

Hello, there. It's been a rather busy day, so I hope you won't mind if I'm a bit tardy to the party, but...


@PoeticallyPsyco

Alright. I'm going to, unfortunately, have to trot out a thing what makes tons of controversy, I suspect, but.

I have read through the entirety of the guide to Lawful Evil, and frankly? I don't see how the example archetypes fail to fit into what I've said.

... You beg my pardon?


Each of them appears to be either:
Not actually capital-E Evil. (E.g. the Dark Knight, the Bureaucrat, certain Executives and Aliens)
Not actually an adventurer (the Executive, the Bureaucrat, the Prince, the Alien, the Dragon)
Not in good taste (the Bad Cop, the Zealot)
Uninteresting (the Cartoon, the unlisted immature types that I'll call "The Caricature," certain forms of Bad Cop)

You are, of course, free to disagree, with me. De gustibus non est disputandem, after all - in matters of taste, there can be no dispute. But to suggest that I am wrong is simply incomprehensible. I mean, have you met me? I'm Me.

Perhaps you missed two points, and were I in a merciful mood, I might forgive you for that. I am never, however, in a merciful mood. In any event, the first point is that, as I mention in the guide, these are not an exclusive list. They are illustrations, not limitations. One's mind is the only limit. What I tried to do was humanize the alignment, make it relatable, and simultaneously give examples of how it could be played.

Which leads me to my second point. You say that these alignments are either not Evil, not adventurers, not in good taste, or not interesting. You're wrong on all counts.

I can call you wrong. You can't call me wrong. Yes, it's hypocritical of me. Again, Evil.

The fact is, any character is precisely what the player brings. Any character can occupy any role that the campaign offers. There is a place for the Prince, or the Dragon. The Bad Cop may be distasteful in terms of morality, but it can still be played tastefully. And unless you simply don't understand the (admittedly simplistic, and for the record I still dislike it) arbitrary alignment system of D&D, yes, a Dark Knight or Alien is Evil if they do Evil. That's simply how it works. You don't have to like it or agree with it - Hells know I don't - but that's the way it is.


And the problem frequently becomes that, when you pull something out of the row it's in, you run afoul of one of the other problems, or you drop the archetype. An actually-capital-E-Evil Executive or Bureaucrat treads on Zealot or Bad Cop--in other words, by becoming genuinely Evil, they run an ENORMOUS risk of falling into "uninteresting" (Caricature/Cartoon). If you remove the Dragon from the sedentary power structure, is the character still in that archetype? I'd argue no. Etc.

So, "Evil characters stop being interesting." Clearly, you haven't played with the right players. Evil characters can be very interesting.

And, once again, you treat these character concepts as prescriptive, rather than illustrative. A character who isn't the Executive simply isn't the Executive. He's still whatever he wants to be, and still Evil.


(As an aside: the Rival is extremely interesting, and a GREAT concept for a villain...who pretty much explicitly can't be someone in the party, because the archetype specifically requires opposing the party in a particular way. One could argue that, for example, Zuko from ATLA is The Rival up until his Heel-Face Turn--and the moment he joins the party, The Rival ceases to apply. This is an unusual example of #2--"not actually an adventurer"--that features no connection to an in-place power-structure at all, showing that it's not strictly about not being part of a power structure, but rather not having the characteristics that fit with being in an adventuring party. The Alien may also fit this mold, as if they're genuinely Alien, it's hard to see how the party and the Alien can have reliable points of agreement--being Alien necessitates very few, if any, such points of agreement.)

Once again, you're imposing your preconceptions on things. The Rival never has to become an ally - he can remain an adversary until he wins or loses to the party. The Alien can have points of agreement with the party - they just don't have to understand why.


Part of the problem is...that guide has an excessively loose perspective on Evil. The author keeps using the phrase "arbitrary alignment," but fails to define it anywhere, and as a result I keep feeling REALLY confused when the author calls things that look objectively Good as "Evil" solely because they...actually strive for their goals rather than faffing about?? Like, here's a quote.

It has a loose perspective on Evil, true, but that's not a problem. It's a feature, not a bug. It's loose to let players and DMs alike make use of it, and refine it as they see fit.

And as for the term "arbitrary alignment," I mean... Have you read a D&D book? Or any of the innumerable alignment debates on this forum? D&D draws some fairly bright lines as to what is or is not Good. Certain things are Evil, no matter how you slice them. It's why so many "clever" DMs think they have the perfect Paladin fall scenario. For example, killing one innocent to stop the deaths of thousands may or may not be a forgivable act, but in D&D terms it is objectively, unquestionably Evil.

That's what "arbitrary alignment" means. I shouldn't have to define it, because it defines itself in text and in practice.


If that "inwardly mourning" is genuine, the character has to be (at least eventually) on a trajectory to non-Evil. Evil doesn't--can't--repent, can't even desire repentance, by Red Fel's own logic (the part about "Apologies" and how Evil never gives them because Evil "knows" it is right, and you never apologize for being right). So...if they actually do put others before themselves, and actually do mourn their actions, I can't see them as Evil. So any Dark Knight, as far as I'm concerned, is either on a course for shedding her Evil (meaning I can't really call her capital-E Evil), or on a course for sticking to that Evil until it's revealed as a betrayal of trust. That betrayal is exactly an "in bad taste" situation, because I am emphatically against PCs betraying PCs, even in well-meaning ways, and will not facilitate such betrayal.

The quote shows an illustration of arbitrary alignment. If the Dark Knight commits unspeakable acts for the "greater good," or to protect his loved ones, by D&D terms he is Evil, regardless of positive intentions. His "inward mourning" does not include actual repentance - id est a desire to cease his Evil conduct, regardless of the cause, and embrace a more positive path. As such, he is not "on a trajectory to non-Evil." He still does Evil. He still justifies it.

Do not confuse remorse with repentance.


So...yeah. I stick to my original claim. A character that is truly Evil, Evil worthy of the capitalized name, is either a non-adventurer, doing things that are in bad taste,* or cartoonish/uninteresting. A character that starts off in one of those categories, and then tries to break out of it, will inevitably fall into one of the others...or fall out of Evil-worthy-of-the-name.

Just... no. I can't explain it any better than that. If you're truly convinced that what you describe is the only way to play Evil, then you've just never played with people who can show you otherwise. And that's legitimately a shame. Because what I've written, in this post and others, has generally allowed a lot of people to see the potential in an oft-maligned (appropriately, and often for good reason) alignment, but you seem particularly disinclined to accept it.

The fact is, these are all illustrations. Illustrations for players, illustrations for DMs. They are loose guidelines to give players an idea how to play. Your reaction - that they are either unplayable, or simply in bad taste - shows that I was not effective in conveying them. That's on me.

But the fact that you cannot accept any way to play these characters other than what you have described is... well, frankly, it's disappointing. I have to believe that you don't play all of your characters the same. You give them variety, complexity. You introduce nuance, depth, and ambiguity. You do this whether a character is Human or Elf, Male or Female, a plucky youth or a jaded veteran. There is a rainbow spectrum of ways to play any given character, any given concept, any given alignment. I did not intend to pigeonhole Lawful Evil when I wrote my guide, I intended to open up new possibilities.

As I sat here, reading your post, I started angry. And then I realized as I read that I was angry because I had failed. Your post showed me that I had not accomplished what I had set out to achieve. Your words - that these concepts were not playable, or in poor taste - showed me that I had not conveyed my meaning.

Which was, very simply, that there are so many ways to play these characters, if you would only try.

And your reaction suggests that you read my guide, and felt that my illustrations narrowed, rather than widened, the possibilities. That the examples I posed were too niche, too specific, to function in a game, and that I was suggesting that anything outside of those examples was simply not quite Evil enough.

For what it's worth, that's not what I was suggesting. But the art, once complete, is out of the hands of the artist; it is up to the viewer to interpret it.

So, interpret it as you will. I regret that I was unable to convey my meaning to you, and do hope you will reconsider. But if you do not, there are many out there who have understood my work for what it does. They have accepted it, been moved by it, and maybe changed a little.

Many, many out there. So rejoice in the fact that I did not sway you. There are so many others who already belong to me.

[PoeticallyPsyco]

I feel like a bunch of people are conflating Evil as it pertains to individual alignment and Evil as it pertains to the group's alignment.

Take my example of an evil character that adventures because they enjoy hurting others. When they defend an orphanage from bandits/ogres/harpies, they're killing those villains because they relish the opportunity to inflict pain on them; they are killing for selfish reasons, and more for sadism, which is pretty definitively Evil. Does the party's morality dip towards neutral/evil as a result? I would say absolutely not. They're accomplishing a good deed (saving the orphanage) while punishing those attempting to hurt the innocent (the bandits/ogres/harpies); the fact that the person they have doing so is enjoying it is immaterial. Having to kick the evil party member out of the group for doing so would be crazy for any but an [Exalted] party, and may be crazy even then. "Sorry Paul, you did a great job smiting the wicked, but you enjoyed it too much, so can't be a hero any more. Guess you'll have to channel those violent urges into villainous activity from now on." Or worse: "Sorry Paul, I know we told you to kill all those villains except the ones who surrendered, but you enjoyed it too much, so we're kicking you out of the group and placing you under arrest so you don't start using your powers for evil."

Basically it comes down to what Red Fel stated (I thought it was up thread, but I can't find it so apparently not): Good characters are defined by their actions; they cannot remain good while performing evil actions, regardless of the purity of their intent. Evil characters are defined by intent; they cannot become neutral or good by performing good actions for evil reasons. If an Evil character is performing good actions for evil reasons and avoiding most or even all evil actions, what exactly is the problem for the good party?

With a well thought out characterization and backstory, you can have a villain who restrains themself and works with the good guys while remaining both fully in character and capital e Evil. Barring that, you can still pull it off with judicious application of anti-"My Guy Syndrome" medication to keep the character toeing the line and avoiding intra-party conflict.



I tried this once: it didn’t work. My LE character took a prisoner and proposed interrogating him. My character (who was sworn to the party paladin), was prepared to back down at the first sign of resistance. The Psladin and the rest of the party (all never-split-the-party types) immediately decided to go exploring out of earshot.

Here, however, I'm absolutely with PhoenixPhyre. That is on the supposedly good characters; they are condoning torture, and while I might not make the Paladin fall for that, it would only be because the first offense is a warning, and they would be receiving divine insight to the effect that they need to shape the hell up. As a player of an evil character, you are well within the bounds of common sense to expect a Paladin to put a stop to a suggestion like that before you have to follow through on it.

If you don't have a Paladin (or similarly upstanding capital g Good character) in the party who can be trusted to overrule pragmatic evil suggestions, you're best off keeping your characterizing evil suggestions in the absurd/Stupid Evil realm of villainy. And honestly, if you're trying to play an evil character in a Good campaign, I'd recommend that regardless; going full Cruella Deville is bombastic and funny, but going full Punisher is a) neither of those things and b) pragmatic enough there's a real chance of your bluff being called. Dependent on campaign tone, as always.

[ezekielraiden]

Hmm, I can definitely see where you're coming from. How are you defining Capital E "Evil", BTW?
Glad I waited to reply. Hamishspence's got it. Capital-E Evil is far past pettiness, casual cruelty, etc. Like Red Fel says, it needs ruthlessness and true belief that your choices were correct. If you truly believe that, remorse and the desire to repent are impossible. Both require that you believe you have done wrong. I agree with PhoenixPhyre on cognitive dissonance: how can an Evil character simultaneously hold "what I did was the correct choice" and "I have made a moral error and must atone."

But to give more of my own definition: mere theft is not Evil (likely Chaotic tho!); knowingly stealing from the defenseless/needy at LEAST verges on Evil (e.g., stealing a child's candy is damned close--stealing a starving child's bread is very Evil). Interest isn't Evil, but controlling people via cyclic debt is (e.g. the Crooked Man from The Wolf Among Us.) Hope that helps.


You can reinforce that capacity for 'greater evil' by actually performing more acceptable lesser evils; for example, Locus's first and most reliable trick was a fighting style that relied on causing agonizing pain to debuff his enemies
Hmm...borderline. Real close to torture (and thus Evil). Point taken that it isn't necessarily torture-like, but it's likely to promote serious discomfort. Might hit that razor-thin "not enough for a Hard No from Good chars, but still lesser-evil." Glad you see the risk of bad-taste for it, otherwise I'd raise that. I might grant one could swing this. It needs some damn careful roleplay on the player's part...or doing things to actively push it away from that borderline, like "it's only a flash of pain, and doing that helps me incapacitate rather than kill." (Maybe not an anti-Evil effort, but to my eyes a clearly non-Evil one; to lose that would be a deeply concerning step on the road to Evil, and possibly the tipping point.)


As for the Dragon, I don't think I agree that such a character can't be an adventurer. It's ultimately not that different from any other character that's sworn an oath to a higher power (in terms of playability, not alignment hopefully). It would rely a lot on the DM either dictating your boss's instructions such that they remain in line with the goals of the group or letting you decide what your boss's instructions are
Maybe I don't get what "the Dragon" means. From the pic/TVTropes ref, I thought The Dragon had an important position in an Evil hierarchy, very often the "right hand" or "personal hound." It strains belief that a genuinely Evil leader (Prince/Executive?) orders their underlings such that they consistently aid and further Good causes. Like, at that point, I'm not sure how the Dragon is Evil anymore. He's Lawful, to be sure, because he's obeying his superior. But he doesn't actually seem to do any meaningful Evil; this Dragon would seem to be Lawful Neutral.


Evil alignment, at least in some cases, is defined by the fact that the character consistently commits evil deeds. How the character feels about their evil deeds, is irrelevant, if their feelings fail to change their pattern of behaviour.
That's what I meant. "Genuine" remorse/repentance requires deeds. Without acting on them, they aren't genuine. Just passing moods/thoughts. Just as intrusive thoughts about violent, criminal, or sexual urges don't make a person Evil (otherwise I would be very Evil indeed. Until I found out what intrusive thoughts were, my guilt over them was immense.)


I think it's often a "guilt by association" thing. People who are going to disrupt a campaign often play characters who act in ways that the game would define as Evil. While it's perfectly possible to disrupt a game while playing a Neutral or Good character, it takes more effort. Some DMs don't want to take the time to deal with the OOC issue, and feel more comfortable with a more passive-aggressive ban on an alignment.
Is that really "guilt by association"? You admit Evil is easier to abuse this way; Good is meaningfully harder. Evil alignment is a tool used very often for that purpose. It's not "Thayans eat sugar," it's "Thayans do blood magic." Maybe blood magic can be used for good...but if it's easy to abuse, why not restrict it? Why is it passive-aggression, and not merely common sense, to say, "I will remove a tool easy to abuse, so that abuse will become less likely." Like I said, you even admit that there is a connection beyond simply "abusive players use it."


Personally I think they should be banning the disruptive behavior, rather than the alignment.
Isn't that a given, and kind of pointless? Just telling people "don't be disruptive!" isn't helpful, it's vague, people will probably do disruptive things anyway. Like how we don't have laws that simply say "don't be immoral." As Red Fel's guide even notes, many simply aren't mature enough to use Evil well. Good's "minimum maturity level" is lower--in fact, other than "moral policeman" Good, most Good characters require little to no maturity at all, because they're self-policing. Evil is very much all about not being self-policing, about sniffing out every advantage you can get, no matter what you (or others) must pay to get it.


A paladin is a huge reducer of agency for the entire party, and that in my experience often leads to conflicts.
Paladins are a class that requires a very high level of maturity to play. It requires balancing humility and honor, justice and mercy, restitution and repentance, necessity and obligation. A lot of players lack the maturity to do these things, and as a result they fall into foolish traps. One of the biggest problems, AFAICT, is that many Paladin basic writeups are VERY easy to misread as saying, "The party SHOULD respect you, and whatever you choose to do." Respect is earned, not provisioned. A good (that is, effective) Paladin is not a party-agency-reducer, any more than someone who supports protecting the natural world or rigorously pursues arcane studies would be, because an effective Paladin is patient, courteous, and kind to everyone, even when that kindness is extremely difficult to summon.

If we're going to say that Evil is fine as long as a mature player does it, Paladins should absolutely get a similar treatment.


IMO that's more of an issue of boundaries than Evil per se.
Okay, here's a question for you:
How many things are Good characters definitely willing to do that are likely to squick or upset other players in the group?
Now, how many things are Evil characters definitely willing to do that are likely to squick or upset other players in the group?

That's my point. Good characters don't torture people--ever. Nor do they engage in slavery, usury, or a variety of other serious problems that many, many players find troublesome. Evil characters have no fundamental compunction against any of these things, because they view other (IC) characters as mere things, to be used as appropriate. Surely you can see how, even if it's an issue of boundaries, Evil is much more likely to cross those boundaries than Good (or even Neutral)?


In my opinion, based on what's said in the splatbooks, Neutral is not significantly more common than Good or Evil are. Especially not in Eberron.

Maybe in standard campaigns, it might be slightly higher - but certainly not "the middle few standard deviations".
See above. Also, see things like the Neverwinter Nights games, where Good and Evil (as well as Law/Chaos) were on a 100-point scale, from 1 (max Evil/Chaos) to 100 (max Law/Good). In order to be "Good" or "Evil," you had to be in the outer 15 on the appropriate end, so 86-100 was "Good" and 1-15 was "Evil." They very clearly intended that Neutral be by far the most common alignment; after all, if most people were uniformly distributed through that spectrum, only about 2.25% (.15*.15) of people would be Lawful Good (or any other individual corner alignment), while a whopping 49% (.7*.7) would be True Neutral.

[Particle_Man]

I suppose one could play a faithful albeit evil servant of one of the good players. Perhaps they inherited you or something like that. This would work best with LE, I think. A monk/assassin, perhaps, who mainly serves as a butler because the good master doesn’t know what else to do with this guy..

[hamishspence]

See above. Also, see things like the Neverwinter Nights games, where Good and Evil (as well as Law/Chaos) were on a 100-point scale, from 1 (max Evil/Chaos) to 100 (max Law/Good). In order to be "Good" or "Evil," you had to be in the outer 15 on the appropriate end, so 86-100 was "Good" and 1-15 was "Evil." They very clearly intended that Neutral be by far the most common alignment; after all, if most people were uniformly distributed through that spectrum, only about 2.25% (.15*.15) of people would be Lawful Good (or any other individual corner alignment), while a whopping 49% (.7*.7) would be True Neutral.

"Humans tend toward no alignment, not even Neutral" doesn't really fit with "49% of humans are True Neutral".

The groupings in DMG for Power Centers, and in Cityscape for Large Community Alignments, also don't make True Neutral that common. It does fit for halfling communities (exactly 50% of halfling community power centers are True Neutral) - consistent with the MM calling them Usually Neutral.

If humans were in the MM - they would need to be "Often True Neutral" by your standard. IMO this would contradict the PHB.

[Calthropstu]

On the nature of good and evil, there is a point most often ignored. Evil is, in fact, the natural state of all beings. Good is a learned trait. It cannot be done without knowledge of what evil is. While it is true that, to an extent, evil and good are subjective and mutable from person to person and cultture to culture, there is a constant of society that usually comes out.

Harming the whole for personal gain is evil.

Usually, however, that which is considered harmful is instinctive. Rape, murder, greed,, etc etc... all of that is instinctual. I see it, I want it, I take it. It's in my way,I eliminate it.

These are natural responses. Being the "bigger man," not taking... that is not the natural way. Going against nature and passing on thinga... that takes learning and knowledge. It takes guidance.We, as a species, took a long long time to get here.

Evil is the base state of all living beings. Good is an ever uphill battle.

[hamishspence]

mere theft is not Evil (likely Chaotic tho!); knowingly stealing from the defenseless/needy at LEAST verges on Evil (e.g., stealing a child's candy is damned close--stealing a starving child's bread is very Evil).

According to BoVD, "mere theft" is Evil by default (though one might conceive of circumstances where the motive and context pushes it out of Evil territory - stealing from a villain in order to thwart them in their villainy).

According to FC2, stealing from the needy is a 2 pt Corrupt act - worse than "engaging in intimidating torture" (torture that does no hit point damage) or Casting An Evil Spell.



Something that a consistent, believable Evil character would not do is to ( willingfully and freely ) keep an association with a group which do not benefit him or expose him to danger without reward ( or with too little reward ).


The way I see it - what a DM changes the character's alignment for, may not always exactly be in sync with the PHB's "Evil people are willing to harm the innocent" theme. Because it's the player who decides "what their character is willing to do".

Cast enough Evil spells To Save The Innocent - torture enough villains To Save The Innocent - and the DM will eventually change the character's alignment to Evil, even if the character has never harmed the innocent, and never became willing to do so.

Result - you can have a character who is fundementally altruistic (everything they do is for no reward, and the benefit of innocents in need) and who is also Evil-aligned. Very much an exception to the general idea of "evil people are selfish and harm the innocent"

[Particle_Man]

According to the D&D canon, as most animals and vermin are True Neutral, not evil. So it seems that in D&D worlds people can learn to be good and they can learn to be evil, or they can, for example, default to some animal like existence where they tend to defend their kith and kin and ignore the plight of strangers.

[hamishspence]

Animals aren't in a position to know better, humans are. A human who acts exactly like an animal in "taking whatever they want", while knowing it's wrong, is Evil, not Neutral.


Hamishspence's got it. Capital-E Evil is far past pettiness, casual cruelty, etc.

IMO the second model of the two I cite, sets the bar much too high for "having an Evil alignment". I prefer the first model - especially for Eberron games. For non-Eberron games (Greyhawk, Dark Sun, FR, etc) I might set the bar a little higher, but not that high.

[gooddragon1]

I'd say selfishness isn't evil by itself.

Where I'd say neutral good is pure good, the opposite is that neutral evil is pure evil.



Some neutral evil villains hold up evil as an ideal, committing evil for its own sake.

"Evil" implies hurting, oppressing, and killing others.


Evil seeks to cause damage. Not for the purpose of helping others.

Lawful evil seeks to cause damage to create a system in their favor.

Chaotic evil seeks to cause damage to remove any system that would inhibit them.

Neutral evil seeks to cause damage using systems in place where efficient and going outside them where efficient. The most efficient evil.

Neutral good seeks the good outcome within the system, but accepts that they may have to go outside the system to get a good result or the best result. The most efficient good.

Animals do not seek to cause damage in itself, their damage is to preserve themselves. They are neutral hungry. They don't go off hunting things if they are full unless they are stockpiling food. They in particular don't go off hunting to cause harm for it's own sake and if they do it to advance themselves it's only as much as they need. Selfish, but with limits and no intent to cause pain for it's own sake.

Selfishness on its own isn't evil though. Seeking to cause damage for its own sake or as a means to advance the agenda of causing more damage (and only that or that and to advance yourself beyond what you need as well) is evil.

Trophy hunters don't do it to see the pain and terror of what they are hunting. Selfish, beyond need, but not with intent to cause damage (where damage is pain and fear).

All this wrapped in tags.

Just got it 1 second... jurassic park 2 quote incoming... nvm.

[ezekielraiden]

Hello, there. It's been a rather busy day, so I hope you won't mind if I'm a bit tardy to the party, but...
Not at all. I am flattered that you took the time to craft a serious, thoughtful reply. Thank you.


I mean, have you met me? I'm Me.
I don't believe so, but it is a pleasure to make your acquaintance.


[As] I mention in the guide, these are not an exclusive list. <snip> The fact is, any character is precisely what the player brings. Any character can occupy any role that the campaign offers. There is a place for the Prince, or the Dragon. The Bad Cop may be distasteful in terms of morality, but it can still be played tastefully.
I understand that these were meant to be emblematic, not even precisely descriptive or prescriptive (as both imply that the thing given is actual usage, as opposed to a useful pattern). I apologize for failing to communicate that well; I was trying for brevity and I think I permitted poor diction as a result. I am not, at all, saying that there's no place whatsoever for characters who hold similarities to these archetypes, but rather that, for one reason or another, I think there are significant barriers for making them work in any way that really matches the stated intent.

For example, I struggle to envisage a situation where a person is regularly torturing innocent people, what I take to be the primary Evil of the Bad Cop, and yet still capable of adventuring with a Good (or even merely Neutral) party. That's blatantly unacceptable behavior to most people, let alone Good people. So it's hard for me to see how a character that reasonably, within-acceptable-margin-of-error, fits the description (or desecription? :smalltongue:) for "Bad Cop," and yet doesn't slide into its particular variant of "kicking puppies for fun." And if they avoid this--if they keep their behavior rigidly controlled, such that they never visit vengeance on the innocent, never exceed the bounds of acceptable battle conduct, never use torture or other Evil methods...I don't see how they're Evil anymore. They need not be Good, to be sure. But by shaving off that much of what makes them Evil, by working so hard to make them guaranteed palatable, I feel like we've reached...well, if you'll permit a humorous metaphor, "homeopathic evil." Evil diluted 10^26 times until there's no detectable trace of it left. That's what I'm hearing.


And unless you simply don't understand the (admittedly simplistic, and for the record I still dislike it) arbitrary alignment system of D&D, yes, a Dark Knight or Alien is Evil if they do Evil. That's simply how it works. You don't have to like it or agree with it - Hells know I don't - but that's the way it is.
Perhaps I don't. I haven't read the BoVD, for example, nor most of the BoED. I don't agree with certain portions, and I have done what I need to at times (such as ignoring the Fiendish Codex II, see below) to try to keep the system self-consistent. For my part, Granny Weatherwax's description of "sin" is the very useful starting point for Evil vs. Good: "Sin, young man, is when you treat people as things. Including yourself. That’s what sin is." Good values sapient life as an end in itself, never exclusively as a means. Evil is when you treat people as though they were things.


So, "Evil characters stop being interesting." Clearly, you haven't played with the right players. Evil characters can be very interesting.
I think there may be some heavy "talking past each other." To drill down some: when I speak of "uninteresting Evil," I mean that it falls into the juvenile "evil" that you and I both dislike (or at least I'm fairly sure you do too), the "evil" that thinks kicking puppies or backstabbing party members for the LOLRANDUMBZ is proper roleplay. Frankly, characters like most Sith Lords: no cleverness, no compelling characteristics, just cardboard Saturday Morning Cartoon villainy, or worse, "FEEL MY UNHOLY RAGE" tantrums without even the "I get something out of doing evil" angle. Any character which falls into this hole, I think we would both agree, is simply uninteresting.


Once again, you're imposing your preconceptions on things. The Rival never has to become an ally - he can remain an adversary until he wins or loses to the party. The Alien can have points of agreement with the party - they just don't have to understand why.
Can he fail to be an ally, and still be a player character? That's my concern here. I can't see how one can remain Rival-like, and yet also be a player character in the same group as the Heroes. If I'm missing something there, I welcome clarification, but the archetype sounds like an inherently NPC archetype. That, likewise, is the problem I have with Evil characters that pursue a Prince-like or Executive-like path: that kind of path requires settling down, creating networks, building a powerbase, and those actions really don't work that well with being a PC. It sounds like, in order to "do Evil, Prince/Executive style," you have to give up adventuring, because running an evil "empire" (be it a great nation-state, a village, or the commerce of a city or region) is something of a full-time job.

I don't see The Rival as a player-character-compatible style, because The Rival explicitly acts antagonistically toward the PCs' goals. Having someone actively doing that while actually "in the party" is a recipe for utter disaster, almost certainly tearing the team apart, or at least having the others turn on the Rival-style character. Zuko demonstrates the reverse direction, being a Rival (the Blue Spirit, and yet also trying to capture Aang), but needing to shed that as soon as he becomes a protagonist.
I don't see the Prince or Executive as player-character-compatible styles, because they're all about empire-management and status-maintenance/status-advancement, both of which require some pretty demanding time investment. G0-T0 demonstrates some of what I refer to: him adventuring is only possible because he has to give up much of his criminal empire.
I don't see the Alien as a player-character-compatible style for two reasons. One, it requires a human player to think in explicitly non-human ways, and that's a really, really tall order--extremely difficult to maintain over the long haul, meaning any character trying for it will drift into *something else.* Two, even if it can somehow be maintained, it requires a values-system either so orthogonal, or so incomprehensible, that I don't see how an Alien-style character can adventure more-or-less-indefinitely with a humanoid-value-holding party.


It has a loose perspective on Evil, true, but that's not a problem. It's a feature, not a bug. It's loose to let players and DMs alike make use of it, and refine it as they see fit.
That's gonna be a problem for me then--a fluid definition of what "Evil" is makes a serious ethical framework extremely difficult. I need something relatively firm so I can analyze it, understand where people have crossed the line, find the common values we share, and leverage those values to try to communicate a different perspective on things. Without the ability to see the lines, there is no prospect of development-of-consensus; we are left disagreeing and not being able to say why.


And as for the term "arbitrary alignment," I mean... Have you read a D&D book? Or any of the innumerable alignment debates on this forum? D&D draws some fairly bright lines as to what is or is not Good. Certain things are Evil, no matter how you slice them. It's why so many "clever" DMs think they have the perfect Paladin fall scenario. For example, killing one innocent to stop the deaths of thousands may or may not be a forgivable act, but in D&D terms it is objectively, unquestionably Evil.

That's what "arbitrary alignment" means. I shouldn't have to define it, because it defines itself in text and in practice.
I guess my problem is...I don't see it as being that arbitrary. Killing innocents is always wrong, full stop. That doesn't sound arbitrary to me; it sounds like a rejection of (at least) "act utilitarianism," and possibly all forms of consequentialist ethics. (I, myself, am more of a virtue ethics guy, which is neither here nor there for D&D alignment--it's also part of why I need those lines, so I can see what virtues, aka value-characteristics, we agree upon, and so I can demonstrate other value-characteristics that may warrant closer attention.)

I'm 100% okay with saying that a city Powered By A Forsaken Child is morally wrong. I'm okay with saying that lobotomizing 10% of the population to make the remaining 90% able to live like kings is morally wrong. Hell, I'm even okay with saying that killing any sapient being is wrong, but sometimes one truly does only have a choice between two wrong alternatives--you take the less-wrong option, and you do penance for doing something wrong after, and work to do better in the future.


If the Dark Knight commits unspeakable acts for the "greater good," or to protect his loved ones, by D&D terms he is Evil, regardless of positive intentions. His "inward mourning" does not include actual repentance - id est a desire to cease his Evil conduct, regardless of the cause, and embrace a more positive path. As such, he is not "on a trajectory to non-Evil." He still does Evil. He still justifies it.

Do not confuse remorse with repentance.
Okay, so this is apparently one of my personal things, but I don't accept that someone can feel remorse, in a rationally consistent way without cognitive dissonance, and yet also do as you describe (continually doing Evil and continually justifying it). If you feel you're justified, you don't feel remorse. We can appeal to an entirely amoral meaning of "remorse" here: "buyer's remorse." A buyer who feels their purchase was really, fundamentally justified simply cannot feel "buyer's remorse" meaningfully. They can only feel buyer's remorse to the extent that they feel their purchase fundamentally was not justified. And if they feel genuine--thoroughgoing, complete, continuous--buyer's remorse, they'll act on it. Certainly they won't make that purchase again, but likely they'll pursue some means of refund or redress. To "feel (genuine) buyer's remorse" is to (genuinely) believe that you made a bad purchasing decision; you cannot simultaneously believe that you made a bad purchasing decision, and also believe that you made a good(=justified) purchasing decision.

Likewise for moral remorse. If you actually feel moral remorse, you truly believe your past choices were bad. Not merely unfortunate, but actually unjustified. To turn a phrase from Catholic doctrine: "Remorse without works is dead." Therefore, either you do feel real/actual/in-practice remorse, and are thus on a trajectory away from Evil, or you don't feel any, and you're on a trajectory toward puppy-kicking Evil, which isn't interesting. Both may be slow trajectories, I freely admit. Both may change direction later on. But ultimately, either you do or you don't believe you were justified in doing heinous things. If you don't, then you aren't really Evil, not ultimately. If you do, you are Evil, and will almost surely do yet more heinous things, until eventually those Evil acts start causing problems with the Good (or even Neutral) people you associate with. At which point you are then forced to choose between doing what your allies want (which means curtailing your Evil deeds pretty significantly, perhaps totally)


That's on me.
It may still be on me. I freely admit I don't understand everything and may not be using "the" D&D alignment system, just my version of it.


As I sat here, reading your post, I started angry. And then I realized as I read that I was angry because I had failed. Your post showed me that I had not accomplished what I had set out to achieve. Your words - that these concepts were not playable, or in poor taste - showed me that I had not conveyed my meaning.

Which was, very simply, that there are so many ways to play these characters, if you would only try.

And your reaction suggests that you read my guide, and felt that my illustrations narrowed, rather than widened, the possibilities. That the examples I posed were too niche, too specific, to function in a game, and that I was suggesting that anything outside of those examples was simply not quite Evil enough.
I apologize for that. My intention was not to trigger such a severe reaction, and I hope that by continuing to engage with you on this, I am making at least some small effort toward addressing that reaction.

I want to emphasize, though, that I don't think the Prince (etc.) are unplayable--I just don't see them as PCs. Their nature demands that they maintain their position within a hierarchy. That's Serious Business. If you've ever read Asimov's Foundation series, the Crisis with General Bel Riose and Cleon II are a great example. If the Foundation faced an Empire with a weak Emperor but a strong General, that general would have every reason to usurp the throne and stay focused on holding it. If it had a strong Emperor but only weak Generals, the Foundation has nothing to fear. If (as actually happened) there were both a strong Emperor and a strong General, the Emperor will recall the General for fear of usurpation, or the Emperor will get usurped by someone else, forcing the General to turn his focus inward. Even if there were a strong Emperor who was himself a General, he couldn't afford to gallivant about in distant provinces--holding onto Trantor was too important, he'd trigger a civil war.

That's why I don't see Princes, Executives or Bureaucrats working as PCs: adventuring means necessarily distancing yourself from the power-structure the characters have chosen to invest in. That's going to be a hard sell for people like Xanatos or Vetinari. (In fact, Vetinari is a great example: you wouldn't have a book with Vetinari as the protagonist, because he's not a protagonist-type character. He's extremely important, and a driver of much adventuring, but he's wrapped up in authority structures that are incompatible with protagonist-y adventuring. Vimes is a double negation thereof, a Lawful Good character who has technically been forced to integrate into the apparatus of state, and goes on adventures instead of actually doing any of those apparatus-of-state things, thus he never builds a powerbase beyond staying in good terms with the city's decent folk.)


I feel like a bunch of people are conflating Evil as it pertains to individual alignment and Evil as it pertains to the group's alignment.

Take my example of an evil character that adventures because they enjoy hurting others. When they defend an orphanage from bandits/ogres/harpies, they're killing those villains because they relish the opportunity to inflict pain on them; they are killing for selfish reasons, and more for sadism, which is pretty definitively Evil. Does the party's morality dip towards neutral/evil as a result?
I guess I just don't understand how someone can be truly sadistic--truly harbor such delight in harming others--and yet somehow, without fail, always rein in those instincts whenever they would cause a problem. That...doesn't actually sound like someone who is sadistic to me. Are you really "a sadist" if you only enjoy the act of fighting when it's strictly appropriate to be fighting, and (no matter how much you enjoy it) never, not even once, engage in a sadistic act outside of that limit? It sounds to me like that's a Neutral character, not an Evil one. How do you demonstrate sadism without ever doing any excessive or unnecessary violence?


Basically it comes down to what Red Fel stated (I thought it was up thread, but I can't find it so apparently not): Good characters are defined by their actions; they cannot remain good while performing evil actions, regardless of the purity of their intent. Evil characters are defined by intent; they cannot become neutral or good by performing good actions for evil reasons. If an Evil character is performing good actions for evil reasons and avoiding most or even all evil actions, what exactly is the problem for the good party?
None. But I don't see how this character is "Evil" anymore. That's what I meant by saying that the characters seem to have moved out of "Evil" entirely. They regulate their behavior scrupulously, they never put a toe out of line, they never act in ways to inconvenience or put out their Good allies. That...sounds like Neutral to me, occasionally doing yucky things, but never willing to cross the line.


Here, however, I'm absolutely with PhoenixPhyre. That is on the supposedly good characters; they are condoning torture, and while I might not make the Paladin fall for that, it would only be because the first offense is a warning, and they would be receiving divine insight to the effect that they need to shape the hell up. As a player of an evil character, you are well within the bounds of common sense to expect a Paladin to put a stop to a suggestion like that before you have to follow through on it.
Completely agreed. Being a Paladin explicitly means you cannot turn a blind eye when it's convenient. That doesn't mean you go full-on self-righteous moral policeman, either, but you put a stop to unacceptable deeds, and you work to set boundaries to avoid future problems.


If you don't have a Paladin (or similarly upstanding capital g Good character) in the party who can be trusted to overrule pragmatic evil suggestions, you're best off keeping your characterizing evil suggestions in the absurd/Stupid Evil realm of villainy.
And "absurd/stupid" is what I would call "bad taste."


"Humans tend toward no alignment, not even Neutral" doesn't really fit with "49% of humans are True Neutral".
If we're going to read this extremely literally, I am forced to argue that the PHB is not "arbitrary," it is self-contradictory. Good and Evil should not be such incredibly common things. Alternatively, I would suggest that the stated section indicates a tendency beyond what is normal--so a normal race DOES have a plurality (but not a majority) being True Neutral, and only comparatively fringe groups actually being one alignment or another. It requires an unusual preponderance of Neutrality (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-bCIA_vyVc) beyond this.


According to BoVD, "mere theft" is Evil by default (though one might conceive of circumstances where the motive and context pushes it out of Evil territory - stealing from a villain in order to thwart them in their villainy).

According to FC2, stealing from the needy is a 2 pt Corrupt act - worse than "engaging in intimidating torture" (torture that does no hit point damage) or Casting An Evil Spell.
I'm...genuinely surprised to hear the BoVD quote, given the thing you quoted previously (though apparently that's 3rd party, didn't know that). Also, I must beg your pardon, I completely ignore the Fiendish Codex II. It's Total Bovine Feces, and produces a not only self-contradictory, but completely useless moral framework. Adding its rules to the overall structure of D&D makes things go completely bonkers, and allows you to prove that nearly every character is irredeemably evil. It's ridiculous.


Cast enough Evil spells To Save The Innocent - torture enough villains To Save The Innocent - and the DM will eventually change the character's alignment to Evil, even if the character has never harmed the innocent, and never became willing to do so.
Well, torture is always wrong sooooo....I'm pretty sure torturing one villain crosses a pretty important line. Good values all life, even its opponents. It doesn't need the fact that torture is usually ineffective--it refuses to use torture because that is treating a sapient being purely as a means to an end, and *not* as an end in itself.

[hamishspence]

It's worth keeping in mind the lack of obligation to "help those in need" when those in need are extremely Evil - and would only use that help for Evil purposes.

A An Exalted Good character may not actually commit an Evil deed - but they are under no obligation to help, or protect, Evil Guy A when he's being attacked by Evil Guy B.

Same is true of a paladin, or of any Good character.

Failing to prevent evil - even choosing not to prevent evil - is not the same as condoning evil, and does not automatically make you an accessory to it.

At least, not with regard to strangers.

With regard to fellow party members, it does become a bit trickier - but again, it's only the most extreme level of Good, that must go to extreme lengths to prevent evil acts from Fellow Party Members.

I completely ignore the Fiendish Codex II. It's Total Bovine Feces, and produces a not only self-contradictory, but completely useless moral framework. Adding its rules to the overall structure of D&D makes things go completely bonkers, and allows you to prove that nearly every character is irredeemably evil. It's ridiculous.


While "9 pts and the Nine Hells automatically gain claim to your soul" is problematic, the general idea, that certain deeds are "Always Evil no matter what" is consistent with what's already been established prior to FC2.


Similarly - that Murder is worse than Desecrating a Good Temple, or that Casting an Evil Spell is very minor compared to Murder, make sense to me.

[Quertus]

@ezekielraiden - I'm really not sure the extent to which I can meaningfully engage with your replies, as you seem to toggle between an almost "no true Scotsman" definition of evil, and an all-inclusive "everything is evil" definition of evil. Neither of which match the RAW definition of evil that would merit putting "evil" on the character sheet, which is what I am attempting to discuss.

[Awakeninfinity]

I have not read through the entirety of the thread; but my reason (and I believe that is has already been stated in a similar manner: is a lack of comfort (combined with inexperience in running with my very chaotic IRL group); this is the first campaign I've run in seven years; mind you. I am out of practice; also most of my important quest giving NPCs are usually powerful good aligned characters.

But the OP asked for specific reasons and I have given mine.

[hamishspence]

BoED goes out of its way to outline when killing is Not Evil - that is - you have just cause, good intentions (you intend to prevent further acts of evil), etc.

BOVD, while listing Lying in its main Evil Acts list, specifically says it's Not Always Evil.

I'd say BoED's guidelines on "When it is Not Evil to Kill" might be applicable to most of the acts in BoVD.

Is it evil to lie to an enemy? No - if it would be not evil to kill them in the same circumstances, but there are reasons outside of moral ones, not to kill them.

How about stealing from the same kind of enemy? Again - when you would not fall for Killing them, it is then OK to steal from them.

But torture, at its worst - is worse than Murder. Hence it can be OK to kill someone and yet not OK to torture them.

[Efrate]

If you go by killing is always evil, then you cannot really adventure and that idea does not work for dnd. Conflating real world with dnd in any way almost always fails.

As for prince and executive adventuring it's doable, you need to build a power base somehow. As long as your adventure isn't 100 percent linear and you revisit locations it's very doable. You can even use your party to help. An Evil thieves guild in town needs destroying? Use party to do so and create a power vacuum to fill. You even graciously spare the lieutenants as a good act, showing your benevolence. Even give them a stipend (read: bribe) to get their lives together (work for you now).

Step in away from your party to take control, your lieutenants run things when you cannot be there, and occasionally you make an example of one of them if they step out of line, pin it on an enemy and use your party again to sort it out. Maybe a "reformed" thief becomes an informant for the party. Very doable. Extra income you help the party with, so mr. goody 2 shoes can get that plus 2 sword a bit earlier. You are a good guy you give him the 3k he is lacking, and maybe later he helps you get that plus 6 Dex gloves when you are a bit short. Your party is just a long term investment, it will pay off. And specialized muscle as the need arises as their informant helps point out the bad guys.

Boy is the team not lucky that you were gracious enough to spare the thieves other than the leader, they are a wealth of resourcefulness that help take care of the real bad guys.

[Efrate]

On sadism. You can be fully sadistic in combat and that's it. Evil like anyone else has stuff to do. Can't be indulging all the time. With 4 combats a day that could easily be enough to scratch that itch and still let you do everything else. You cannot be drunk always, or fornicating always, so you indulge hard when you can then get on with your life.

[PhoenixPhyre]

If you go by killing is always evil, then you cannot really adventure and that idea does not work for dnd. Conflating real world with dnd in any way almost always fails.

As for prince and executive adventuring it's doable, you need to build a power base somehow. As long as your adventure isn't 100 percent linear and you revisit locations it's very doable. You can even use your party to help. An Evil thieves guild in town needs destroying? Use party to do so and create a power vacuum to fill. You even graciously spare the lieutenants as a good act, showing your benevolence.

Step in away from your party to take control, your lieutenants run things when you cannot be there, and occasionally you make an example of one of them if they step out of line, pin it on an enemy and use your party again to sort it out. Maybe a "reformed" thief becomes an informant for the party. Very doable. Extra income you help the party with, so mr. goody 2 shoes can get that plus 2 sword a bit earlier. You are a good guy you give him the 3k he is lacking, and maybe later he helps you get that plus 6 Dex gloves when you are a bit short. Your party is just a long term investment, it will pay off. And specialized muscle as the need arises as their informant helps point out the bad guys.

Boy is the team not lucky that you were gracious enough to spare the thieves other than the leader, they are a wealth of resourcefulness that help take care of the real bad guya.

All of this requires that the party is nothing more than
a) your flunkies and hirelings/pawns
b) totally obedient to your will

both of which are not PC traits. They're the traits of a bad character or an NPC/quest-giver. The repeated "use your party" phrase gives it away. The PCs are supposed to be equals, adventuring together and sharing the burden, not expendable pawns of the real main character. This all denies the rest of the party any agency whatsoever. It also breaks verisimilitude hard--why is your level 1 character such a powerful individual? Why don't you have basically endless wealth/resources (which would shatter WBL)? Why don't your (evil) lieutenants usurp your position if you're gone so much? Etc.

This just confirms for me that those archetypes make bad PCs. They're great retirement plans or aspirations for PCs, but horrible for active PCs unless you're completely taking a break/got deposed from your position.

[Efrate]

Does not the party use the cleric for healing? Does not the fighter use the party for vengeance on the orc warlord that kills his family? You all use/depend on one another as needed.

It is just a quest line, similar to others. If you do It right it is no different from any other. And yes you use them you are evil. Done right they will not know. And it is just your time to shine. Most quests have a place where one member shines this is yours. This is not a level 1 quest it's a mid level goal and it fits perfectly in that place. It is not limitless wbl it's a leg up. Most of your income goes into the organization and you can always take a smaller share of treasure.

The quest is even in line with most, go to a place where bad guys are and eliminate them and take their stuff. No different that rooting out a goblin infestation. You just spare some of them which is a good act. You can then use some of your spared people for further quests. Or just leave it as is.

It requires work with your dm but is very reasonable.

[Conradine]

Anyhow...
it's not only the Evil character who must act reasonable. Also the party should try to be accommodating. ( here, I'm thinking about my very first party and DM, who were not accommodating or reasonable at all )

An Evil mercenary can join a good party for a reasonable fee, abstain from evil behiavour and act professional but you must pay him as agreed.

IMO the problem is not inherently about evil characters but about behaving as reasonable adults in real life. Everything can be solved, then. And nothing works if you deal with unreasonable people, instead.



While "9 pts and the Nine Hells automatically gain claim to your soul" is problematic

To amass 9 points means either repeated use of Evil spells ( who can be explained with "tainting your soul with the essence of Evil" ) or a behiavour which is inequivocally, heavily Evil ( kill in cold blood, torture ecc. ). It's not wrote down explicitly but I don't think that killing bandits, marauders, monsters ecc. can be assimilated to "murder".

[Lorddenorstrus]

All of this requires that the party is nothing more than
a) your flunkies and hirelings/pawns
b) totally obedient to your will

both of which are not PC traits. They're the traits of a bad character or an NPC/quest-giver. The repeated "use your party" phrase gives it away. The PCs are supposed to be equals, adventuring together and sharing the burden, not expendable pawns of the real main character. This all denies the rest of the party any agency whatsoever. It also breaks verisimilitude hard--why is your level 1 character such a powerful individual? Why don't you have basically endless wealth/resources (which would shatter WBL)? Why don't your (evil) lieutenants usurp your position if you're gone so much? Etc.

This just confirms for me that those archetypes make bad PCs. They're great retirement plans or aspirations for PCs, but horrible for active PCs unless you're completely taking a break/got deposed from your position.

Not really? It's not difficult to convince your party to help you with something. Not in my experience. "hey lets go kill bandits and thieves." Most people just say sure why not unless the DM is trying to force a plot down your throats at that exact moment. It sounds like you don't play D&D, your suggestion is that the party is so divisive inherently that they all want to do different things at the exact same moment and are never able to "agree" and achieve anything.

[HeraldOfExius]

I've noticed that a lot of this thread has been focused on the idea of a non-evil party that has an evil member that is known to be evil. But unless the party has a paladin constantly detecting evil on everybody (which drifts into the separate issue of an evil PC being in the same party as a paladin), then the PCs won't necessarily know who is or isn't evil (although the players most likely will, unless the evil PC's player is very protective of their character sheet or shows everybody else one that is filled with lies (yes, I know somebody who did this)).

Assuming that the party is not given magical proof that their ally is evil, an evil character should be able to cooperate with the party as long as they find it in their benefit to do so. The party might find them to be more aggressive/greedy/etc. than everybody else, but are they just going to turn against their ally because they think said ally might have a different alignment?

[Red Fel]

I don't believe so, but it is a pleasure to make your acquaintance.

It is, isn't it?


I understand that these were meant to be emblematic, not even precisely descriptive or prescriptive (as both imply that the thing given is actual usage, as opposed to a useful pattern). I apologize for failing to communicate that well; I was trying for brevity and I think I permitted poor diction as a result. I am not, at all, saying that there's no place whatsoever for characters who hold similarities to these archetypes, but rather that, for one reason or another, I think there are significant barriers for making them work in any way that really matches the stated intent.

For example, I struggle to envisage a situation where a person is regularly torturing innocent people, what I take to be the primary Evil of the Bad Cop, and yet still capable of adventuring with a Good (or even merely Neutral) party. That's blatantly unacceptable behavior to most people, let alone Good people. So it's hard for me to see how a character that reasonably, within-acceptable-margin-of-error, fits the description (or desecription? :smalltongue:) for "Bad Cop," and yet doesn't slide into its particular variant of "kicking puppies for fun." And if they avoid this--if they keep their behavior rigidly controlled, such that they never visit vengeance on the innocent, never exceed the bounds of acceptable battle conduct, never use torture or other Evil methods...I don't see how they're Evil anymore. They need not be Good, to be sure. But by shaving off that much of what makes them Evil, by working so hard to make them guaranteed palatable, I feel like we've reached...well, if you'll permit a humorous metaphor, "homeopathic evil." Evil diluted 10^26 times until there's no detectable trace of it left. That's what I'm hearing.

Literal torture doesn't need to be the hallmark of the Bad Cop. I mean, it was the hallmark of Scumbridge, but that just points out how vile she is. No, the hallmark of the Bad Cop is attaching oneself to a more powerful authority for the twin purposes of exercising your baser instincts and covering them in the veneer of legitimacy for your own protection. If Belkar were LE, he would be a perfect example of the Bad Cop, using his position in an adventuring party - one with the stated mission of saving reality, no less - as justification for his more savage tendencies, and a reason why he should be inured against consequence.

The fact is, as I point out, the Bad Cop is so utterly unsympathetic and cruel that it is extraordinarily difficult to make one that's playable. Difficult, but not impossible. Again, while torture is the iconic example, other acts of cruelty, barbarism, or bloodthirst are appropriate. The key angle - the L on the E - is the attachment and service to some seemingly legitimate authority. And the Bad Cop's loyalty need not be superficial, either - many are the thugs and brutes who are grateful and loyal to their masters, specifically because they have the opportunity to indulge those baser instincts while in their service.

Yes, my examples dilute a great deal of Evil. That's a valid complaint. They do so, because if I presented pure, glorious, terrible Evil, in all of its awe-inducing splendor, people would cringe from it. They would find it at the very least daunting, at worst unplayable. So I present a modified, or nerfed, version. A more palatable Evil.

As I always do.


Perhaps I don't. I haven't read the BoVD, for example, nor most of the BoED. I don't agree with certain portions, and I have done what I need to at times (such as ignoring the Fiendish Codex II, see below) to try to keep the system self-consistent. For my part, Granny Weatherwax's description of "sin" is the very useful starting point for Evil vs. Good: "Sin, young man, is when you treat people as things. Including yourself. That’s what sin is." Good values sapient life as an end in itself, never exclusively as a means. Evil is when you treat people as though they were things.

I love the Granny Weatherwax quote. I really do. But as insightful as that might be into real-world morality, we aren't discussing that here. (Or ever, in these forums.) We're discussing D&D morality, an observable cosmic force, rigidly defined and with parameters and relatively concrete outlines. The fact is, D&D's alignment system is bad. It is overly simplistic, punishes or ignores nuance, and prevents what might otherwise be some fascinating explorations of character. But it is what it is. I am aware of a number of tables that use house rules to modify or improve on the system, but absent those, the arbitrary nature of D&D alignment is the common denominator and common language, and it is that which I strove to address in my guide.


I think there may be some heavy "talking past each other." To drill down some: when I speak of "uninteresting Evil," I mean that it falls into the juvenile "evil" that you and I both dislike (or at least I'm fairly sure you do too), the "evil" that thinks kicking puppies or backstabbing party members for the LOLRANDUMBZ is proper roleplay. Frankly, characters like most Sith Lords: no cleverness, no compelling characteristics, just cardboard Saturday Morning Cartoon villainy, or worse, "FEEL MY UNHOLY RAGE" tantrums without even the "I get something out of doing evil" angle. Any character which falls into this hole, I think we would both agree, is simply uninteresting.

Oh, I quite agree with you. "For the evulz" characters infuriate me. The fact is, cartoon villainy may have its place - I suggested an archetype for specifically that reason - but when it doesn't, its presence is jarring. While I wouldn't call it "uninteresting," I would agree with you that it lacks a place, a purpose.


Can he fail to be an ally, and still be a player character? That's my concern here. I can't see how one can remain Rival-like, and yet also be a player character in the same group as the Heroes. If I'm missing something there, I welcome clarification, but the archetype sounds like an inherently NPC archetype. That, likewise, is the problem I have with Evil characters that pursue a Prince-like or Executive-like path: that kind of path requires settling down, creating networks, building a powerbase, and those actions really don't work that well with being a PC. It sounds like, in order to "do Evil, Prince/Executive style," you have to give up adventuring, because running an evil "empire" (be it a great nation-state, a village, or the commerce of a city or region) is something of a full-time job.

I don't see The Rival as a player-character-compatible style, because The Rival explicitly acts antagonistically toward the PCs' goals. Having someone actively doing that while actually "in the party" is a recipe for utter disaster, almost certainly tearing the team apart, or at least having the others turn on the Rival-style character. Zuko demonstrates the reverse direction, being a Rival (the Blue Spirit, and yet also trying to capture Aang), but needing to shed that as soon as he becomes a protagonist.
I don't see the Prince or Executive as player-character-compatible styles, because they're all about empire-management and status-maintenance/status-advancement, both of which require some pretty demanding time investment. G0-T0 demonstrates some of what I refer to: him adventuring is only possible because he has to give up much of his criminal empire.
I don't see the Alien as a player-character-compatible style for two reasons. One, it requires a human player to think in explicitly non-human ways, and that's a really, really tall order--extremely difficult to maintain over the long haul, meaning any character trying for it will drift into *something else.* Two, even if it can somehow be maintained, it requires a values-system either so orthogonal, or so incomprehensible, that I don't see how an Alien-style character can adventure more-or-less-indefinitely with a humanoid-value-holding party.

Admittedly, running some of these as PCs can be hard. One thing I emphasized in the guide was that this wasn't just for player characters - it was also to help GMs craft convincing and compelling antagonists. However, yes, it can be done.

With regard to the Rival, I have played that character in a campaign. He was LE, and his life was saved at some point in the past. He owed a life-debt to his savior, and when she died, that debt passed to her LG brother. So this Rival was determined to push this heroic swordsman to become an impeccable warrior, even if it meant almost killing him in spars, even if it meant driving him headfirst into combat, because he would be damned if he owed his life to some pathetic weakling.

With regard to the Prince or the Executive, it's true that they work best in a hierarchical structure. But that's not to say that structure must be localized. For example, a wetworks operative for a vast network, spread out across the continent, could be called upon at any time and in any place to perform his necessary work - and still be the Bureaucrat, in that he does what he does because, as Carly Simon wrote, nobody does it better. A warlord may lead his band to glory and triumph across the kingdom, and still be a Prince, a leader of others with a cruel savage streak. An Executive may travel from place to place, making deals and securing favors and influence, all in a gradual progression to become an influence behind the throne. It's a character arc which may take the length of a campaign, but it doesn't require him to stay still. It's all in how you play it.

With regard to the Alien, that's surprisingly easy to play as a PC. Have you ever played the card game Mao? It's like Crazy Eights, but with a twist - each time a player wins a hand, that player may invent a new rule, known only to the player and the dealer. Over time, insane new rules accumulate which each player struggles to remember and follow. That's part of the fun.

An Alien works the same way - you have a rigid set of rules that only you know, for reasons that only you understand. Perhaps the other PCs will come to know some of your rules, but they may never grasp why you have them, or how important it is that those rules be followed. That adds all sorts of interesting wrinkles to gameplay, and creates the possibility of fascinating character interactions and plot hooks as those rules are followed, broken, or exploited.


That's gonna be a problem for me then--a fluid definition of what "Evil" is makes a serious ethical framework extremely difficult. I need something relatively firm so I can analyze it, understand where people have crossed the line, find the common values we share, and leverage those values to try to communicate a different perspective on things. Without the ability to see the lines, there is no prospect of development-of-consensus; we are left disagreeing and not being able to say why.

In some ways, it is not fluid. D&D defines Good and Evil with respect to actions pretty clearly in most cases. The fluidity is in how you play it. Obviously, a problem arises if you play an Evil character in a campaign where you are never afforded the opportunity to perform Evil acts. But the occasional act of cruelty or excess, as I describe in my guide, allows you to both maintain your alignment, from a metagame perspective, and to remind the party that you are not on their end of the moral spectrum, from an RP perspective.


I guess my problem is...I don't see it as being that arbitrary. Killing innocents is always wrong, full stop. That doesn't sound arbitrary to me; it sounds like a rejection of (at least) "act utilitarianism," and possibly all forms of consequentialist ethics. (I, myself, am more of a virtue ethics guy, which is neither here nor there for D&D alignment--it's also part of why I need those lines, so I can see what virtues, aka value-characteristics, we agree upon, and so I can demonstrate other value-characteristics that may warrant closer attention.)

I won't get into the real-life ethics. Suffice to say this: Where the ethics of D&D decide that an action is Evil, irrespective of context or consequence, full stop, they are arbitrary. That doesn't mean they're wrong, or that I disagree with them in all cases, but where they preclude subjectivity, they are necessarily objective.


I'm 100% okay with saying that a city Powered By A Forsaken Child is morally wrong. I'm okay with saying that lobotomizing 10% of the population to make the remaining 90% able to live like kings is morally wrong. Hell, I'm even okay with saying that killing any sapient being is wrong, but sometimes one truly does only have a choice between two wrong alternatives--you take the less-wrong option, and you do penance for doing something wrong after, and work to do better in the future.

And under D&D morality, the lesser of two Evils is still Evil, and if you are the sort of person comfortable with the lesser of two Evils, you are comfortable doing Evil, and therefore you are, at the very least, non-Good, regardless of your reasons.

See? Arbitrary.


Okay, so this is apparently one of my personal things, but I don't accept that someone can feel remorse, in a rationally consistent way without cognitive dissonance, and yet also do as you describe (continually doing Evil and continually justifying it). If you feel you're justified, you don't feel remorse. We can appeal to an entirely amoral meaning of "remorse" here: "buyer's remorse." A buyer who feels their purchase was really, fundamentally justified simply cannot feel "buyer's remorse" meaningfully. They can only feel buyer's remorse to the extent that they feel their purchase fundamentally was not justified. And if they feel genuine--thoroughgoing, complete, continuous--buyer's remorse, they'll act on it. Certainly they won't make that purchase again, but likely they'll pursue some means of refund or redress. To "feel (genuine) buyer's remorse" is to (genuinely) believe that you made a bad purchasing decision; you cannot simultaneously believe that you made a bad purchasing decision, and also believe that you made a good(=justified) purchasing decision.

Likewise for moral remorse. If you actually feel moral remorse, you truly believe your past choices were bad. Not merely unfortunate, but actually unjustified. To turn a phrase from Catholic doctrine: "Remorse without works is dead." Therefore, either you do feel real/actual/in-practice remorse, and are thus on a trajectory away from Evil, or you don't feel any, and you're on a trajectory toward puppy-kicking Evil, which isn't interesting. Both may be slow trajectories, I freely admit. Both may change direction later on. But ultimately, either you do or you don't believe you were justified in doing heinous things. If you don't, then you aren't really Evil, not ultimately. If you do, you are Evil, and will almost surely do yet more heinous things, until eventually those Evil acts start causing problems with the Good (or even Neutral) people you associate with. At which point you are then forced to choose between doing what your allies want (which means curtailing your Evil deeds pretty significantly, perhaps totally)

Perhaps remorse was the wrong word. Regret, then. Regret, that a thing had to be done. Regret, that it was such a waste.

Or, if you consider cognitive dissonance, remorse is appropriate. Because remorse is justification. I feel remorse, therefore I am a good person. I wish I didn't have to do it, therefore I'm not a bad person. It's not that I want to do these things, so I'm not a monster.

The Dark Knight is, in many ways, frequently simply Evil In Denial.

That remorse is never, as you describe it, true remorse. It is not repentance. It does not come with an associated desire to do better, to change. It is, at best, a surface-level emotion, mild guilt associated with actions. Perhaps the character believes, on a subconscious level, that feeling bad about his deeds is enough to wash the moral stain away. He's wrong, but he's tragic, so it makes for compelling characterization.

Sometimes.


It may still be on me. I freely admit I don't understand everything and may not be using "the" D&D alignment system, just my version of it.

And that's totally cool. I get that and endorse it. But I can't speak to anyone's subjective experience or house rules - I can only speak to the common concept of alignment as written.


I apologize for that. My intention was not to trigger such a severe reaction, and I hope that by continuing to engage with you on this, I am making at least some small effort toward addressing that reaction.

Don't sweat it. It was a long day, I was fried, you made me think a bunch. Don't make me think a bunch again.


I want to emphasize, though, that I don't think the Prince (etc.) are unplayable--I just don't see them as PCs. Their nature demands that they maintain their position within a hierarchy. That's Serious Business. If you've ever read Asimov's Foundation series, the Crisis with General Bel Riose and Cleon II are a great example. If the Foundation faced an Empire with a weak Emperor but a strong General, that general would have every reason to usurp the throne and stay focused on holding it. If it had a strong Emperor but only weak Generals, the Foundation has nothing to fear. If (as actually happened) there were both a strong Emperor and a strong General, the Emperor will recall the General for fear of usurpation, or the Emperor will get usurped by someone else, forcing the General to turn his focus inward. Even if there were a strong Emperor who was himself a General, he couldn't afford to gallivant about in distant provinces--holding onto Trantor was too important, he'd trigger a civil war.

That's why I don't see Princes, Executives or Bureaucrats working as PCs: adventuring means necessarily distancing yourself from the power-structure the characters have chosen to invest in. That's going to be a hard sell for people like Xanatos or Vetinari. (In fact, Vetinari is a great example: you wouldn't have a book with Vetinari as the protagonist, because he's not a protagonist-type character. He's extremely important, and a driver of much adventuring, but he's wrapped up in authority structures that are incompatible with protagonist-y adventuring. Vimes is a double negation thereof, a Lawful Good character who has technically been forced to integrate into the apparatus of state, and goes on adventures instead of actually doing any of those apparatus-of-state things, thus he never builds a powerbase beyond staying in good terms with the city's decent folk.)

I get that. And you wouldn't be wrong. They, and other archetypes, make for great NPCs. But with some creativity, they can function as PCs as well. Remember, before Tarkin was a Grand Moff, he had to work his way up the ranks. Before Xanatos was a powerful CEO, he was the son of a fisherman. (Until he mailed himself a $10,000 coin through time, but that's another story.) They all start somewhere, and there's nothing stopping somewhere from being "adventurer."

And, of course, if one campaign takes place within an existing structure, rather than out on the road, well, that opens up possibilities too, doesn't it?

[Conradine]

Red Fel, are you sure all Evil characters are delusional about being wrong?

I would expect at least clerics with the Evil domain and antipaladins / blackguards to know they are the bad guys.

[Red Fel]

Red Fel, are you sure all Evil characters are delusional about being wrong?

I would expect at least clerics with the Evil domain and antipaladins / blackguards to know they are the bad guys.

I'm pretty sure I was more or less limiting my example to certain subspecies of the Dark Knight. There are, perhaps, a few others who might be in denial about it - Zealots come to mind.

But for the most part, and I've said this before, Evil characters are either aware of the fact that they are Evil, or they simply don't care. Call me whatever you want, but if my methods get the job done, I'm not going to stop just because you wag your finger at me. The existence of a divine hierarchy of Evil, in parallel to that of Good, strongly reinforces the idea that there is a place for Evil in the world. That Evil isn't an aberration, or an anomaly, but a natural part of existence - like a plague, or a wildfire, or a pack of ravenous wild beasts. This is justification, true, but Evil is really, really good at justifying.

[TheYell]

Red Fel, are you sure all Evil characters are delusional about being wrong?

I would expect at least clerics with the Evil domain and antipaladins / blackguards to know they are the bad guys.

Pardon me for butting in, but that seems to be where Ian Fleming's Bond-villian "wolves vs the herd" thinking would kick in.

You know you're different than 999/1000. That'd be because you're BETTER.

No remorse, or repentance, or acceptance of the rules governing the other 999.

edit -- ninja'd

[GrayDeath]

Red Fel, let me once again reiterate what a pleasrue it is to read your well reasoned, well written and overall simply good (if Evil^^) Posts. Thank you!


My small contribution to the OP and a slight bit to the ongoing discussion is this:

Even if someone is Evil, it never anywhere (exception some classes^^) says he has to be doing Evil all the time. Or even all that often.
Its just that he usually has no qualms about doing so if its advantageous to him.

So you might adventure with a strictly loyal, dependable guy with a strong moral codex....who still thinks murder and extortion, intimidation and overall doing bad stuff to "expediate ones success" is totally normal.
(I am at the moment playing such a character, who would probably be Red Feld at about 40% Dragon, 40% ALien and roughly 10% of the rest Executive and Cartoon, depending on the situation, if such a detailed classification could apply^^).
Trust me, the other group members, who started out true neutral, chaotic good and lawful neutral have almost all seen the superiority of the one True Alignment of Success (only one is still fighting it, and ill get him too ^^).


Less jokingly: Evil would not be half as dangeorus if it was always, or even most of the time,e asy to identify, wouldnt you agree?

[LordBlades]

Red Fel, are you sure all Evil characters are delusional about being wrong?

I would expect at least clerics with the Evil domain and antipaladins / blackguards to know they are the bad guys.

Being right and being Good isn't necessarily the same thing, especially in a world where Good and Evil are objective cosmic forces.

Consider a cleric of Gruumsh for example. He is leading orc hordes to war, to pillage and conquer. He is doing the right thing because he is fighting for a better and brighter future for the orc race. Should he stop just because the greater powers, many of which hate orcs obviously, have decided his actions in support of his people are Evil?

[Particle_Man]

I suppose one might think of the tales of The Three Musketeers. If one gets into The Man in the Iron Mask territory, it IMHO becomes fairly clear that Aramis was an evil character adventuring with good characters. Mind you, in that case you have writer fiat negating problems (or creating them, of course - Porthos was problematic for Aramis at one point).

[Mr Adventurer]

Consider a cleric of Gruumsh for example. He is leading orc hordes to war, to pillage and conquer. He is doing the right thing because he is fighting for a better and brighter future for the orc race.

No he's not, you literally said he's doing it to pillage and conquer.

It would be possible to crusade for a brighter future for your people, but the sole aim of pillaging and conquering does nothing to secure that future.

[Ryton]

I once played a LE warlock with the Dark Speech feat, which is a language so vile, "so foul... that even devil's and demons refrain from it's use, lest it consume them." That character was plenty capable of adventuring with a party, some of them even being Good with a capital G. The warlock may not have used the Dark Speech often (it has... side effects), but there was no doubt that the character knew more than a smattering.

Now if you want to argue that any character who would use the Dark Speech could never be accepted into a good party, the Baleful Utterance invocation (Shatter), is explicitly accomplished by use of the Dark Speech, and therefore usable by a CG warlock, which by extrapolation would mean no Warlock of any stripe that knows the Baleful Utterance invocation could ever adventure with a good party. Which seems... wrong.

[Calthropstu]

I'm pretty sure I was more or less limiting my example to certain subspecies of the Dark Knight. There are, perhaps, a few others who might be in denial about it - Zealots come to mind.

But for the most part, and I've said this before, Evil characters are either aware of the fact that they are Evil, or they simply don't care. Call me whatever you want, but if my methods get the job done, I'm not going to stop just because you wag your finger at me. The existence of a divine hierarchy of Evil, in parallel to that of Good, strongly reinforces the idea that there is a place for Evil in the world. That Evil isn't an aberration, or an anomaly, but a natural part of existence - like a plague, or a wildfire, or a pack of ravenous wild beasts. This is justification, true, but Evil is really, really good at justifying.

See my post above as to the nature of evil and evil clerics make a lot more sense. A fall back to nature and an argument can be made that going against our baser instincts is not only unhealthy, but destructive overall. Take the god of tyranny for example. Tyranny can, and has, produce amazing results. A solid tyrant can force reforms that no one else ever can. This is the pinnacle of theft and murder. A base instinct that can be used for the greater good. But "good" deities and societies look down on such and actively prevent it, forgoing any benefit that can be attained.
Same with the god of greed. Greed puts large amounts of money into the hands of a single individual... an individual who can then fund research and other projects benefitting all.
Think of the god of war. War, despite its brutality, brings with it an exchange of culture and ideas. It also necessitates rapid change and adaptation.

So evil clerics do not have to see themselves as evil, but more likely as enlightened.

[SimonMoon6]

Based on certain real world famous people (one in particular), I see how evil people may think, without either thinking of themselves as "better" or "evil":

(1) "Everyone does bad stuff, so what do you expect?"

This sort of evil person will acknowledge that the things he does are maybe not ideal moral-wise, but he still wouldn't consider himself to be any more evil than anyone else. After all, everyone is a criminal, right? Have you ever broken a law? Have you ever littered or broken the speed limit? Then you are a criminal. Therefore, if I murder someone, you're just as bad as I am because we're both criminals, so why are you attacking me? What about the litterers? And the speeders? Why don't you deal with all of them first before coming after me? We're all equal.

Of course, this is what they call a false equivalency, but it helps to deflect any accusation of wrongdoing. Sure, maybe I did something a little bit wrong (murder) but everyone does SOMETHING wrong (speeding), so why are you picking on me?

(2) "What I did was smart."

So what if I robbed the "widows and orphans" fund? It was just sitting there and they would only waste the money. It was smart of me to take it. I don't see how you can try to jail someone for doing something smart. Anyone smart would've done the same thing.

(3) "How dare you accuse me of being evil. Accusing me of being evil is evil! You're evil!"

A typical deflection tactic. They see "evil" as just a word, a word that doesn't have any real meaning other than being a very negative word that you use on someone you don't like. So, the mainstream so-called "good" people have come up with this ridiculous word that doesn't even mean anything and then try to apply it to the people that they don't like. It's not fair.

They might even try to reclaim the word and use it on their own enemies. And that helps their supporters think that, "Yeah, maybe we ARE the good guys and THEY are evil." That doesn't work so well when you can cast "detect evil" or "know alignment" but most people can't do that. But even when someone can cast those spells, again, they just think "evil" is a word that doesn't mean anything. Casting "detect evil" is no more significant than casting "detect hooby-jooby-bloobie". It doesn't mean anything. And it seems really unfair to be attacked with a label that doesn't even mean anything but which everyone seems to think is a really big deal.

[LordBlades]

No he's not, you literally said he's doing it to pillage and conquer.

It would be possible to crusade for a brighter future for your people, but the sole aim of pillaging and conquering does nothing to secure that future.

It worked quite well for pretty much every successful Empire in history.

[Rydiro]

I think a main Problem lies in the fact, that some Books on alignment are written from a LG point of view. Partly because they are rulebooks and try to codify Good behavior into rules.
I like to give Chaos its due: "The end never justifies the means" is a Lawful statement and can be used as well to argue against tax exemptions for the starving.
This Lawful perspective gives rise to such silly Ideas as one person being defined by a singular acts. "They broke a rule, omg"

At the same time, the rulebooks paint Evil as cartoonish and over the top "For the Evulz" and common "Lying is evil (that is the most absurd thing)" / a third of the populatin is evil.
That really does not help with alignment boundaries.

I admit, i tend to the Lawful side of the spectrum and have a fondness for LE chars. But the bias in the rules isn't helpful. It rigs the game against compelling moral arguments from the other 8 places of the alignment grid. And I like my challengers on equal footing.

tl;dr: Rulebooks are LG propaganda.

[hamishspence]

"1/3 population is evil" is an Eberron thing (standard D&D has a slightly narrower zone). It goes hand-in-hand with "Evil does not necessarily deserve to be attacked by adventurers".

BOVD, while listing Lying in its list of things that tend to be evil, specifically states it's not always evil.

[Quertus]

Cast enough Evil spells To Save The Innocent - torture enough villains To Save The Innocent - and the DM will eventually change the character's alignment to Evil, even if the character has never harmed the innocent, and never became willing to do so.

Result - you can have a character who is fundementally altruistic (everything they do is for no reward, and the benefit of innocents in need) and who is also Evil-aligned. Very much an exception to the general idea of "evil people are selfish and harm the innocent"

Thus, I prefer to just start at evil. Yeah, I used a Wand of Protection from Good several times to free people from possession. I'm evil. Get over it.


"1/3 population is evil" is an Eberron thing (standard D&D has a slightly narrower zone). It goes hand-in-hand with "Evil does not necessarily deserve to be attacked by adventurers".

BOVD, while listing Lying in its list of things that tend to be evil, specifically states it's not always evil.

"Does this dress make me look fat?"

Lying for personal gain is evil. Lying for others… may not be.

[AvatarVecna]

Versimilitude. Most games default to "party does things that lean LG-ish" ina way that allows for a variety of adventurers to sign up even if theyre not even close to LG, and parties are usually fine leaning into that even if its not a perfect fit for their characters. But at the end of the day, this is a social game.

Let me give you an example that doesn't run afoul of the good evil dichotomy. One of my regular games Has four characters - one a neutral good caster trying to do the right thing, and three CN murderhobos of various paintjobs. They are all fairly well developed characters, but frequently the Good Guy feels frustrated trying to get anything done with his partymates, but he enjoys the one on one RP too much to switch characters.

At the end of the day, you have to game with the other people at the table, and if there's too much difference in ideology/methodology, you eventually have to deal with the question "why is my character even hanging out with this turd-gobbler again". This is sorta the last argument, the one about tastelessness, but it's more like...trying to avoid the deatu of a thousand cuts: if the party is leaning Good (as most are), unless the Evil character is barely evil ever, there's gonna be a lot of little moments that rub you the wrong way and you'll need an answer for "why do I work with him again".

It's easier to nip that potential argument in the bud by not allowing Evil. Some DMs extend that to CN for obvious reasons.

[Psychoalpha]

1. You're a hero Most games are designed around the idea that the PCs are heroes. Heroes try to destroy evil wherever it may be found. So, if a PC is evil, the other PCs are *supposed* to destroy him. That's the point of the game.

Erm... fully a third of the human population in the standard D&D world are evil. If your goals as a PC at any point involve the destruction of a third of humanity*, you might want to re-examine what being a hero means. That's not even taking into account other races, or the fact that it wouldn't end there since new people would be born, and I'm pretty sure the point of most games isn't about being the Sword of Damocles hanging over the head of all children reminding them what happened to those other thousands/millions/billions of people (depending on the size of your world) you killed.

*Yes, I'm aware that under a certain HD non-divine folks won't detect as anything. It doesn't change the point of my hyperbole.

It's the very rare enemy the heroes face who needs to be destroyed simply 'because they are evil', and if a party ever was just killing anything that detected as evil, I would expect them to end up in a very bad way before too long. Said enemy might be doing the things that warrant their destruction because they're evil, but it's not at all uncommon for the actions an enemy is taking to be not all that far removed from what a Neutral entity could or would commit. Alignment shouldn't be the deciding factor, though it can be a contributing one.

If someone is an evil cleric of an Evil god of rape and murder and the torture of puppies and children, by all means, destroy away. But the fact that they detect as evil is probably the least of the reasons PCs would want to destroy such a character, the rest probably having to do with the kind of activities one would have to indulge in or evangelize for to be that kind of Cleric. Again, a Neutral cleric of such a god should probably be put down just as quickly.

Conversely, a high level Fighter whose personality and inclinations are just evil enough to qualify but who's smart enough to turn his impulses towards cruelty and brutality against other evils that plague the land (thus being hailed as a hero despite just being a serial killer with a socially acceptable target type), is just as likely to be an ally or quest giver as a BBEG.

---

As is usually the case, the problem tends more to be players than characters or campaigns, and the reasons why are pretty well noted in the first post. The number of campaigns I've been in that started with us all being part of the same order of Good aligned types is not zero, but is pretty small compared to the number where characters could reasonably be of an evil bent. Unfortunately, the number of people who are actually capable of playing evil characters without making it an outrageous pain in the butt for other players also approaches zero. Somebody earlier mentioned Chaotic Neutral, and it's about the same ratio of folks.

If your campaign start for the group doesn't work for evil PCs, then the reason not to allow evil PCs is the same as it is to not allow Dwarf PCs if you want everybody to start as 1st level Drow in the Underdark, at least at the start.

[Conradine]

Personally, I like the concept expressed in Fiendish Codex 2 "Evil alignment requires action, not only thought". I find it reasonable, although it means much less than 1/3 of the human population would qualify. It makes evil "serious", not something abstract for phylosophers to speculate upon.

Some Good spells deals damage only to Evil characters. Casting them is always a Good action. It would be a paradox if such a spell could kill a relative innocent ( one who never acted upon his worst thoughts ).

With the FC2 corruption system, to be Evil requires several heinous actions, so no Evil character can be considered innocent.

[hamishspence]

Personally, I like the concept expressed in Fiendish Codex 2 "Evil alignment requires action, not only thought".

To be precise, "getting damned to the Nine Hells requires action, not just thought".

Alignment can be established without action.

A newborn green dragon is LE, yet has committed no LE actions. If slain immediately after hatching, by FC2 rules, it cannot go to the Nine Hells. It probably goes to Acheron instead.

Same might apply if someone has been cursed with a Helm of Opposite Alignment, then killed before they can actually do anything.



Some Good spells deals damage only to Evil characters. Casting them is always a Good action. It would be a paradox if such a spell could kill a relative innocent ( one who never acted upon his worst thoughts ).

And some Good spells, like Holy Word, are capable of killing Neutral characters.

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/holyWord.htm

The fact that a Good spell can be used to murder the innocent isn't a paradox - it's simply a case where the casting is judged separately from the consequences of the casting.

[Quertus]

Erm... fully a third of the human population in the standard D&D world are evil. If your goals as a PC at any point involve the destruction of a third of humanity*, you might want to re-examine what being a hero means. That's not even taking into account other races, or the fact that it wouldn't end there since new people would be born, and I'm pretty sure the point of most games isn't about being the Sword of Damocles hanging over the head of all children reminding them what happened to those other thousands/millions/billions of people (depending on the size of your world) you killed.

Now I really want to play in a game about killing one-third of the population to truly rid the world of evil.

[Conradine]

A mortal's soul is condemned to Hell at the very moment she becomes lawful evil.

Quite clear. ( Fiendish Codex, pg 14 )




And some Good spells, like Holy Word, are capable of killing Neutral characters.

Well, I personally doubt that, RAI, Holy Word could be used to kill a bunch of newborns ( who are True Neutral by the rules ).




THE MOMENT OF DAMNATION
A mortal’s soul is condemned to Hell at the very moment she
becomes lawful evil. The devil most responsible for inspiring the
mortal’s ultimate, defining act of lawful evil gets the credit for
her soul’s acquisition. If the mortal later undergoes a change
of heart and drifts into a new alignment, her soul is no longer
considered damned. An attentive devil might notice this loss
and return, hoping to nudge its previous victim back to her old
ways and thus reclaim her soul.
Credit for the soul of a mortal who drifts between alignments
throughout her life but finally winds up in Baator goes to the
devil that originally led her into temptation. The assumption
behind this policy is that the original corrupter laid the groundwork for the soul’s final damnation. This arrangement is much
cleaner and easier to enforce than any system requiring case-bycase examination, and devils like their distinctions clear-cut.
Individuals raised in lawful evil societies typically take the
decisive step toward damnation upon reaching the age of
reason. However, one must actually commit evil acts to suffer
the torments of Baator; merely thinking bad thoughts does
not incur damnation. Thus, lawful evil societies often employ
coming-of-age rituals designed to force their young men and
women to commit evil deeds to win full adult status. Young
men, for example, are often placed in barracks and encouraged
to beat and torment weaker boys. The devilish advisors of the
local rulers are often the ultimate authors of such customs,
though some develop spontaneously in an environment already
predisposed toward evil.


Although I don't know how to square that with the corruption points mechanics.

[hamishspence]

Quite clear. ( Fiendish Codex, pg 14 )

THE MOMENT OF DAMNATION
A mortal’s soul is condemned to Hell at the very moment she
becomes lawful evil. The devil most responsible for inspiring the
mortal’s ultimate, defining act of lawful evil gets the credit for
her soul’s acquisition.


This,

"one must actually commit evil acts to suffer the torments of Baator; merely thinking bad thoughts does not incur damnation."

applied to any being that has somehow become Lawful Evil without actually committing an Evil act - produces the result I described - of slain LE innocent beings going elsewhere.



Well, I personally doubt that, RAI, Holy Word could be used to kill a bunch of newborns ( who are True Neutral by the rules ).



RAW, a caster of 11th level or higher casting Holy Word, will kill a bunch of 1st level Neutral commoners, if they are in range. If higher level, higher level Neutrals will die.

[Conradine]

If we sum

A mortal’s soul is condemned to Hell at the very moment she becomes lawful evil.

and

one must actually commit evil acts to suffer the torments of Baator; merely thinking bad thoughts does not incur damnation

the result that can be deduced is: "one must actually commit evil acts to become evil".

[hamishspence]

the result that can be deduced is: "one must actually commit evil acts to become evil".

But the rules in the MM contradict this - by stating that Always X Alignment beings are born with that alignment.

Add to that, magical ways of forcing an alignment change - and it is quite possible, RAW, to be Evil and Not Guilty.



If an interpretation of FC2 contradicts Core - then that interpretation is wrong - and a different interpretation is called for.

[PoeticallyPsyco]

But the rules in the MM contradict this - by stating that Always X Alignment beings are born with that alignment.

Add to that, magical ways of forcing an alignment change - and it is quite possible, RAW, to be Evil and Not Guilty.



If an interpretation of FC2 contradicts Core - then that interpretation is wrong - and a different interpretation is called for.

Alternatively, being born or converted counts as an evil act for the person being born or magically turned evil. No I don't think that's fair, but it is the logical result of the rules as presented.

[hamishspence]

Alternatively, being born or converted counts as an evil act for the person being born or magically turned evil.

Magically converted, via "failing a will save"? I wouldn't count it. Same with "being hatched".

For me, the only palatable solution to the problem, is that such characters can't get into Baator, regardless of their actual alignment qualifying them.

It's consistent, and doesn't actually contradict FC2 as written. FC2 was focusing on not-evil characters who have voluntarily committed Evil acts, and asking at what point they become The Damned.


By RAW, a "born LE, killed at birth" character's corruption score is zero. Same with a saintly character who has been cursed Evil, then killed immediately afterward.

[Erit]

Please forgive me having skimmed the prior pages; has anyone brought up the doctor/lawyer argument yet? The notion that modern polite society is full of high-functioning psychopaths people with empathy deficits of varying stripes, who are fully capable of being upstanding members of society while also being, internally, a little bit of a "monster?"

Because the way I usually see it played out, that's a significant component of the Good/Evil dichotomy; empathy and compassion, "love redeems" etc etc. It's why Evil alignments are playable, because it's not that Evil people necessarily enjoy the suffering of others (though it's not an uncommon trait), it's that they're unaffected by it, and it's irrelevant to their consideration. Evil is capable of denying personhood where necessary or convenient, and in more extreme examples can default to so doing, but it's still able to connect with others and form meaningful relationships. This is how the Dark Knight archetype is able to exist, after all.

It's how I get away with playing Lawful Evil. Because the character isn't a psychotic, paranoid, compulsive miscreant; they're just... not concerned with those outside their chosen few.

"But that's just Neu—" no, it really isn't. And you know it isn't. Neutral alignments aren't filled with an abundance of empathy such that they give of themselves for the benefit of others, but they aren't able to go to the lengths of denying someone moral consideration just because it's the most effective course of action for the task at hand. Even if a Neutral actor does the same things as an Evil one, they respond to it in profoundly different ways; one with hesitance and remorse, the other with indifference at best.

[hamishspence]

Please forgive me having skimmed the prior pages; has anyone brought up the doctor/lawyer argument yet? The notion that modern polite society is full of high-functioning psychopaths people with empathy deficits of varying stripes, who are fully capable of being upstanding members of society while also being, internally, a little bit of a "monster?"

Because the way I usually see it played out, that's a significant component of the Good/Evil dichotomy; empathy and compassion, "love redeems" etc etc. It's why Evil alignments are playable, because it's not that Evil people necessarily enjoy the suffering of others (though it's not an uncommon trait), it's that they're unaffected by it, and it's irrelevant to their consideration. Evil is capable of denying personhood where necessary or convenient, and in more extreme examples can default to so doing, but it's still able to connect with others and form meaningful relationships. This is how the Dark Knight archetype is able to exist, after all.

It's how I get away with playing Lawful Evil. Because the character isn't a psychotic, paranoid, compulsive miscreant; they're just... not concerned with those outside their chosen few.

"But that's just Neu—" no, it really isn't. And you know it isn't. Neutral alignments aren't filled with an abundance of empathy such that they give of themselves for the benefit of others, but they aren't able to go to the lengths of denying someone moral consideration just because it's the most effective course of action for the task at hand. Even if a Neutral actor does the same things as an Evil one, they respond to it in profoundly different ways; one with hesitance and remorse, the other with indifference at best.


IMO, that's fairly consistent with alignment as presented in Eberron. One of the examples the Campaign Setting book actually gave as "evil people who don't deserve to be attacked by adventurers," was the "cruel advocate" (lawyer).

So "Society is full of upstanding, yet technically Evil aligned people" fits well there at least.

[Pugwampy]

I wish I read this thread before my last groups main players tried to be evil .

It killed a very nice campaign . I tried giving a speech about this being a social game and being ostracized from towns . Then I tried adapting . Even winding back time and blaming it on party drug hallucination session ...but no cigar

Had an evil jerk player , a pair of stupid evil players . Half the the rest did not want to be evil . Game was halted for 7 weeks .

Do I think evil campaign it's possible yes . But this must be decided at the start of a campaign . Swopping from good to bad halfway is a game killer .

[PoeticallyPsyco]

I wish I read this thread before my last groups main players tried to be evil .

It killed a very nice campaign . I tried giving a speech about this being a social game and being ostracized from towns . Then I tried adapting . Even winding back time and blaming it on party drug hallucination session ...but no cigar

Had an evil jerk player , a pair of stupid evil players . Half the the rest did not want to be evil . Game was halted for 7 weeks .

Do I think evil campaign it's possible yes . But this must be decided at the start of a campaign . Swopping from good to bad halfway is a game killer .

Yeah, any evil character (or any character for that matter) pretty much needs to be a team player, or it just won't work in a typical campaign. When building a character, you must give them a reason to work with the party, be that friendship/love/respect, requiring them alive/happy for your goals, or even just being obsessed with winning and considering losing a teammate to be a failure. With one character evil to be a jerk and two evil to be stupid, I'm impressed you held it together for as long as you did.

[ezekielraiden]

Yeah, any evil character (or any character for that matter) pretty much needs to be a team player, or it just won't work in a typical campaign. When building a character, you must give them a reason to work with the party, be that friendship/love/respect, requiring them alive/happy for your goals, or even just being obsessed with winning and considering losing a teammate to be a failure. With one character evil to be a jerk and two evil to be stupid, I'm impressed you held it together for as long as you did.

Right. And I think that's really the crux of my problem. People keep comparing one side being stupid (what the poster often considers "typical") and the other side being smart. We should be doing a smart:smart and stupid:stupid comparison.

I don't think anyone disagrees that smartly-played Good is viable and interesting. And Red Fel has articulated a...well, I've already argued it's excessively watered down a la Evil Overlord's List "evil"* (and he's rebutted that it isn't), but it's certainly a form of smart roleplaying. Smart roleplay is presumptively effective and contributes to overall group success.

The problem, then, is when they're played really, really badly. Immature, foolish, petulant, etc. And I would argue that "Stupid Good," while it has many problems, has substantially fewer than "Stupid Evil." With Stupid Good, the faulty behaviors are primarily: martyr complex, moral policeman wankery, gullibility, and dogmatism. However, of these, only the second and fourth (moral policeman/dogmatism) are particularly dangerous to group cohesion. Someone gullible or suffering a martyr complex may be a burden, but they're unlikely to drive a wedge into the party. "Stupid Evil," on the other hand, has Chronic Backstabbing Syndrome, which by itself may be enough to cause a serious problem, but it also has things like "(Nickname for Richard) Dastardly Stops to Cheat," extreme pettiness, and omnicidal mania.

Or, more simply: Good is, by itself, a reason to cohere with the party. Evil is not, Evil needs a reason to cohere with the party. That seems reason enough to treat the two differently.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Right. And I think that's really the crux of my problem. People keep comparing one side being stupid (what the poster often considers "typical") and the other side being smart. We should be doing a smart:smart and stupid:stupid comparison.

I don't think anyone disagrees that smartly-played Good is viable and interesting. And Red Fel has articulated a...well, I've already argued it's excessively watered down a la Evil Overlord's List "evil"* (and he's rebutted that it isn't), but it's certainly a form of smart roleplaying. Smart roleplay is presumptively effective and contributes to overall group success.

The problem, then, is when they're played really, really badly. Immature, foolish, petulant, etc. And I would argue that "Stupid Good," while it has many problems, has substantially fewer than "Stupid Evil." With Stupid Good, the faulty behaviors are primarily: martyr complex, moral policeman wankery, gullibility, and dogmatism. However, of these, only the second and fourth (moral policeman/dogmatism) are particularly dangerous to group cohesion. Someone gullible or suffering a martyr complex may be a burden, but they're unlikely to drive a wedge into the party. "Stupid Evil," on the other hand, has Chronic Backstabbing Syndrome, which by itself may be enough to cause a serious problem, but it also has things like "**** Dastardly Stops to Cheat," extreme pettiness, and omnicidal mania.

Or, more simply: Good is, by itself, a reason to cohere with the party. Evil is not, Evil needs a reason to cohere with the party. That seems reason enough to treat the two differently.

I agree. And in my experience, it's much harder to do Good wrong (for party purposes) than it is to do Evil right. The concept space that works for Good is enormous compared to the concept space that works for Evil. So the incidence and severity rates of problems involving Evil characters is much larger than for Good characters.

[LordBlades]

I agree. And in my experience, it's much harder to do Good wrong (for party purposes) than it is to do Evil right. The concept space that works for Good is enormous compared to the concept space that works for Evil. So the incidence and severity rates of problems involving Evil characters is much larger than for Good characters.

While that is quite accurate, it's partially counterbalanced by the fact that, while there is no instance that I know of in a 3.5 book encouraging players to play disruptive Evil characters, there are several instances encouraging players to play disruptive Good characters, starting from the PHB, with the paladin's code of conduct.

[Quertus]

Right. And I think that's really the crux of my problem. People keep comparing one side being stupid (what the poster often considers "typical") and the other side being smart. We should be doing a smart:smart and stupid:stupid comparison.

I don't think anyone disagrees that smartly-played Good is viable and interesting. And Red Fel has articulated a...well, I've already argued it's excessively watered down a la Evil Overlord's List "evil"* (and he's rebutted that it isn't), but it's certainly a form of smart roleplaying. Smart roleplay is presumptively effective and contributes to overall group success.

The problem, then, is when they're played really, really badly. Immature, foolish, petulant, etc. And I would argue that "Stupid Good," while it has many problems, has substantially fewer than "Stupid Evil." With Stupid Good, the faulty behaviors are primarily: martyr complex, moral policeman wankery, gullibility, and dogmatism. However, of these, only the second and fourth (moral policeman/dogmatism) are particularly dangerous to group cohesion. Someone gullible or suffering a martyr complex may be a burden, but they're unlikely to drive a wedge into the party. "Stupid Evil," on the other hand, has Chronic Backstabbing Syndrome, which by itself may be enough to cause a serious problem, but it also has things like "(Nickname for Richard) Dastardly Stops to Cheat," extreme pettiness, and omnicidal mania.

Or, more simply: Good is, by itself, a reason to cohere with the party. Evil is not, Evil needs a reason to cohere with the party. That seems reason enough to treat the two differently.

Strongly disagree. (Well, OK, I strongly agree that we should compare smart-smart, and that stupid anything is bad, but I disagree with your specific conclusions that good leads to cohesion).

Two well-meaning ("smart") Good characters can think that they're well-designed to work with a group. But then one has a moral imperative to protect the innocent, and therefore to kill the monsters; whereas a second has a moral imperative to accept surrender, and therefore to not kill the monsters.

Time and again, I've seen Good characters come into conflict because of conflicting moral values. Smart Evil doesn't have that problem. IME, smart Evil is much better for party unity than smart Good.

I suppose the reason that Evil is better for party unity is that, with Evil, you can metagame, and make "the social contract" and "working with the party" the most important things. Whereas, with Good, you could try… but whatever makes them "Good" has to take priority, else they are no longer Good.

My Necromancer, who has Animated the Dead, or my slave trader, or my torture expert? They are secure in their alignment, and are free to be party compatable. Good characters do not have that luxury - they can be put in scenarios where "their alignment" and "the party" are in opposition.

[Psychoalpha]

Two well-meaning ("smart") Good characters can think that they're well-designed to work with a group. But then one has a moral imperative to protect the innocent, and therefore to kill the monsters; whereas a second has a moral imperative to accept surrender, and therefore to not kill the monsters.

Time and again, I've seen Good characters come into conflict because of conflicting moral values. Smart Evil doesn't have that problem. IME, smart Evil is much better for party unity than smart Good.

This is just a bad example. You're using characters with strong ethical codes. Protecting the innocent may be a matter of morality, but the manner in which you go about it has more to do with other components of your alignment or code. Characters may try to ascribe such behavior to morality or good, but whether or not you accept the surrender of a creature whose continued existence poses a clear or potential danger to those innocents is not necessarily a matter of good in terms of your alignment.

More to the point, you're using examples of characters with built in issues that support your point, and comparing them to characters that don't. My Neutral Good cleric doesn't have strong feelings about whether to accept a surrender or not, and bases it entirely on the situation, the monster, etc rather than on any code or morality. Likewise the Bard and Sorcerer in his party don't care either way, both Good. The Chaotic Good Rogue and the Lawful Good Paladin argue on that front, but again it has little to do with Good and everything to do with their perspectives on what constitutes protection/justice/etc.

Your evil characters may be more akin to the three good ones in that example, but there are plenty of evil characters who will have exactly that kind of conflict with one another. A Lawful Evil character who follows, say, Hextor and believes that while slavery is a vital necessity to a civilized society it goes hand in hand with caring for their health and well being (such as it is) and protecting those slaves from abuse, is going to come into direct conflict with a Chaotic Evil character from a society where the weak are to be crushed and tormented (because adversity breeds strength, or because cruelty pleases their god, or whatever else). Both behaviors are evil, but they are incompatible evil, just like there can be incompatible good.

You're not comparing smart good to smart evil, you're comparing uncompromising good to flexible evil, which doesn't really prove anything except that uncompromising characters have more trouble cooperating than flexible ones do.

[MoiMagnus]

they can be put in scenarios where "their alignment" and "the party" are in opposition.

I feel like this is important.

If the DM do not put the party in morally challenging situations, which is the case of most DMs, then there are never any moral conflict, hence there is no party division from it... unless an evil PC actually create a morally challenging situation (like wanting to sell slaves).

Forbidding evil characters give to the DM a total and full control of "what evils exist in this world", so in particular "what moral challenges will be presented to the players".

In general, forbidding evils characters give to the DM more control on the campaign, and makes the players more predictable (which makes DMing easier). It offers easy way to put the players into difficulty (egoistic characters tend to be much more prudent than altruistic ones), and give to the DM more control on the power level, in particular access to money and magical objects (characters motivated by profit will actively try to obtain money and power, while altruistic characters will often be happy with whatever is given as long as it is reasonable).

On the other hand, good characters (especially if they have a pacifist vibe) can significantly slow down the game by caring too much about their alignment. "Smart Good" should be able compromise, even if that means having some neutral tendencies. [Unless the table is actually interested in moral debates on what is the true nature of Good, but most aren't]

[AvatarVecna]

Stupid Good is about as difficult to play with as Stupid Evil, for different reasons, it's just a lot less common. Stupid Evil seems to tend to be the default, where people who "want to play evil characters" are less "wanting to explore deeper shades of moral and ethical roleplaying in a dark world where murder and theft are major tools of the quote unquote good guys" and more "evil for the lulz" - trolling and "pranking" by just being an ******* to people who can't actually force you to face consequences for being a ****. In a sense, the extended version of this in a different medium would be script kiddies downloading hacks and jumping into some multiplayer game and auto-sniping everybody else on the server: they're not doing it because they labor under the delusion that hacks make them "good at the game", they're doing it because finding people who take the game seriously and making those people mad is their entertainment. Griefing and trolling and hacking are fine for your personal entertainment in single-player mode, if that's your thing, but if you try stuff like that in a pen-and-paper RPG, eventually people stop inviting you. The rogue that steals your stuff while you're busy fighting, the warlock who does more to aid the enemy then her partymates, the antipaladin who's legally obligated to kick every puppy he sees and hides behind "it's what my character would do" even though you both know damn well he didn't have to make an antipaladin legally obligated to kick puppies...they all show up now and then, and you only tolerate them for so long.

Stupid Good is a...different kind of issue. Regardless of how deep or intricate or complex their actual moral compass is, it tends to boil down to a very simple problem: being an adventurer, regardless of your goals, tends to be pretty morally gray in terms of how you accomplish those goals. From a certain point of view, typical adventurers are genocidal kleptomaniacs arbitrarily sympathizing with these ******* NPCs instead of those ******* NPCs, but at the same time if they hate this part of the job so much then why even become an adventurer? Making the world a better place than you found it is a noble concept, but in practice there's just so many people working to make it worse - not out of direct malice, but out of a desire to survive, an understandable selfishness. Their existence means that conflict is inevitable, and some problems just can't be talked out...but that's not going to stop Stupid Good from trying.

[Erit]

This is just a bad example. You're using characters with strong ethical codes. Protecting the innocent may be a matter of morality, but the manner in which you go about it has more to do with other components of your alignment or code. Characters may try to ascribe such behavior to morality or good, but whether or not you accept the surrender of a creature whose continued existence poses a clear or potential danger to those innocents is not necessarily a matter of good in terms of your alignment.

I get the distinct impression you don't like The Book of Exalted Deeds very much.


Stupid Good is about as difficult to play with as Stupid Evil, for different reasons, it's just a lot less common. Stupid Evil seems to tend to be the default, where people who "want to play evil characters" are less "wanting to explore deeper shades of moral and ethical roleplaying in a dark world where murder and theft are major tools of the quote unquote good guys" and more "evil for the lulz" - trolling and "pranking" by just being an ******* to people who can't actually force you to face consequences for being a ****. In a sense, the extended version of this in a different medium would be script kiddies downloading hacks and jumping into some multiplayer game and auto-sniping everybody else on the server: they're not doing it because they labor under the delusion that hacks make them "good at the game", they're doing it because finding people who take the game seriously and making those people mad is their entertainment. Griefing and trolling and hacking are fine for your personal entertainment in single-player mode, if that's your thing, but if you try stuff like that in a pen-and-paper RPG, eventually people stop inviting you. The rogue that steals your stuff while you're busy fighting, the warlock who does more to aid the enemy then her partymates, the antipaladin who's legally obligated to kick every puppy he sees and hides behind "it's what my character would do" even though you both know damn well he didn't have to make an antipaladin legally obligated to kick puppies...they all show up now and then, and you only tolerate them for so long.

Stupid Good is a...different kind of issue. Regardless of how deep or intricate or complex their actual moral compass is, it tends to boil down to a very simple problem: being an adventurer, regardless of your goals, tends to be pretty morally gray in terms of how you accomplish those goals. From a certain point of view, typical adventurers are genocidal kleptomaniacs arbitrarily sympathizing with these ******* NPCs instead of those ******* NPCs, but at the same time if they hate this part of the job so much then why even become an adventurer? Making the world a better place than you found it is a noble concept, but in practice there's just so many people working to make it worse - not out of direct malice, but out of a desire to survive, an understandable selfishness. Their existence means that conflict is inevitable, and some problems just can't be talked out...but that's not going to stop Stupid Good from trying.

Good and Evil, with sophisticated enough philosophies in play, can come to rather eerily resemble Sine and Cosine when the ethics debates come up. The interesting thing is that Evil alignments can do Good stuff if it suits their purposes, but the inverse is much harder to rationalize.

Which is why I enjoy playing sophisticated and well-mannered sorts of Evil. Polite, affable even, and perfectly willing to sell your soul to a Baatezu if that's the most effective way to do things.

[Quertus]

This is just a bad example. You're using characters with strong ethical codes. Protecting the innocent may be a matter of morality, but the manner in which you go about it has more to do with other components of your alignment or code. Characters may try to ascribe such behavior to morality or good, but whether or not you accept the surrender of a creature whose continued existence poses a clear or potential danger to those innocents is not necessarily a matter of good in terms of your alignment.

More to the point, you're using examples of characters with built in issues that support your point, and comparing them to characters that don't. My Neutral Good cleric doesn't have strong feelings about whether to accept a surrender or not, and bases it entirely on the situation, the monster, etc rather than on any code or morality. Likewise the Bard and Sorcerer in his party don't care either way, both Good. The Chaotic Good Rogue and the Lawful Good Paladin argue on that front, but again it has little to do with Good and everything to do with their perspectives on what constitutes protection/justice/etc.

Your evil characters may be more akin to the three good ones in that example, but there are plenty of evil characters who will have exactly that kind of conflict with one another. A Lawful Evil character who follows, say, Hextor and believes that while slavery is a vital necessity to a civilized society it goes hand in hand with caring for their health and well being (such as it is) and protecting those slaves from abuse, is going to come into direct conflict with a Chaotic Evil character from a society where the weak are to be crushed and tormented (because adversity breeds strength, or because cruelty pleases their god, or whatever else). Both behaviors are evil, but they are incompatible evil, just like there can be incompatible good.

You're not comparing smart good to smart evil, you're comparing uncompromising good to flexible evil, which doesn't really prove anything except that uncompromising characters have more trouble cooperating than flexible ones do.

I mean, you're not wrong - I certainly am comparing "flexible" and "inflexible" characters. But, uh, by definition, don't Evil characters have a certain "moral flexibility" that - equally by definition - Good characters lack? Or, at least, that if they don't lack, they do not remain Good for long?

Put another way, suppose that the other 10 members of the party (I like big parties, OK) want to take the monsters prisoner. Even if he thinks that killing the monsters is the right thing to do, my Evil Necromancer can put the party first - raise his objections & concerns at the time, and raise the dead villagers (killed by the surrendered monsters) into his Undead army later while saying "I told you so". But do you believe that a Good character can so easily ignore his concerns and set aside his morals for the sake of party unity (and still remain Good)?

I'm just not seeing a way that a good character can feel that he has a legitimate moral concern (in this example, "protection of the innocent"), and simply choose to ignore it for the sake of party unity. I'm just not seeing how one can legitimately contend that well-built Evil isn't better for party unity than well-built Good, when Evil can simply put the party first, and Good… can't.

-----

That said, I'm much more into building and discussing personalities than alignments.


I feel like this is important.

If the DM do not put the party in morally challenging situations, which is the case of most DMs, then there are never any moral conflict, hence there is no party division from it... unless an evil PC actually create a morally challenging situation (like wanting to sell slaves).

D&D is (usually) filled with lots of killing of sentient beings. Classically, while committing a home invasion (as OOTS comments on).

Really, I find it exceedingly difficult to even imagine D&D without any potentially morally challenging situations, given that the general premise is rather full of morally grey.

[LordBlades]

D&D is (usually) filled with lots of killing of sentient beings. Classically, while committing a home invasion (as OOTS comments on).

Really, I find it exceedingly difficult to even imagine D&D without any potentially morally challenging situations, given that the general premise is rather full of morally grey.

While I personally agree with you (that's how I like to play the game too) there's also another way to play, where the world is neatly divided into people and monsters, and killing monsters is Good, while killing people is Evil. Some people just want to delve into Dungeons and slay Dragons.

[Psychoalpha]

I get the distinct impression you don't like The Book of Exalted Deeds very much.

Exalted Deeds takes some very absolute values for 'good', as if any character with a good alignment is not just a paragon of virtue but a paragon of every virtue. While such characters might exist, they aren't really very representative of most good-aligned fantasy characters. Beyond that, though, I just don't accept the premise put forward by Exalted Deeds that presents accepting surrender as inherently 'Good'. Having mercy is inherently good, which is what ED is talking about I believe, but I disagree with the premise there that the act of not accepting a surrender is inherently merciless.

Treating such things as if they are one size fits all seems to be a common way for good characters to fall from grace, for another thing. >_>



Good and Evil, with sophisticated enough philosophies in play, can come to rather eerily resemble Sine and Cosine when the ethics debates come up. The interesting thing is that Evil alignments can do Good stuff if it suits their purposes, but the inverse is much harder to rationalize.

It's not really all that hard to rationalize, it's just dangerous to do so. Band of marauding Orcs going about pillaging/raping/murdering villages? Killing them is pretty easy. They offer surrender when you try, and it gets more complicated, usually because again it leans into Law or Chaos more than Good or Evil. Also because people bring a lot of RL baggage into their D&D games sometimes. :p


But, uh, by definition, don't Evil characters have a certain "moral flexibility" that - equally by definition - Good characters lack? Or, at least, that if they don't lack, they do not remain Good for long?

Some do, some don't. I'll grant you that it's easier for them to have it, but the example you gave wasn't about good characters being unable to do evil things, but good characters arguing over a course of action when their beliefs on what the right thing to do conflicted. Evil characters are just as likely to come into conflict with one another, even over the exact same things. A Lawful Evil Knight of Hextor and a Chaotic Evil Cleric of Grumsh are probably going to come into all sorts of conflict about how their party should behave in any number of circumstances, including the disposition of a surrendering enemy. Being evil doesn't make them any more likely to come to an accord than a Paladin and a good aligned Rogue.

If anything, evil parties are more likely to implode because generally speaking good parties take 'murdering your party members in their sleep' (or even to their faces) completely off the table, when those conflicts inevitably do arise. :p

[ezekielraiden]

I mean, you're not wrong - I certainly am comparing "flexible" and "inflexible" characters. But, uh, by definition, don't Evil characters have a certain "moral flexibility" that - equally by definition - Good characters lack? Or, at least, that if they don't lack, they do not remain Good for long?
There is a difference between "less flexible" and "utterly inflexible." Your presentation comes across as a false dichotomy; either characters are totally flexible, or they're totally inflexible, and because Good is (debatably) less flexible than Evil, that must mean Good is totally inflexible.

As for Evil's alleged flexibility: I agree that it can be flexible in some ways that Good isn't. But it's also inflexible in some ways Good isn't. Evil always needs a reason for acting. It needs to benefit in some identifiable, concrete way--noting that "having a good reputation" is something I consider "concrete" in this context. Good doesn't need a reason to do Good--it just does it because that's what it does. Evil, or at least anything I would call worthy of the name, MUST be convinced. Sometimes, the convincing is done in advance, but it always has to be done. That's an important and serious point of inflexibility. For a DM like me, who gets very uncomfortable when the players start doing things or even threatening to do things that are morally suspect (torture, for example), this means that every. single. adventure. now has to be justified, "worth the effort" in the eyes of the Evil party member(s), or else we have a party split.

To say nothing of Evil party members--even serious, mature ones--having to constantly ask themselves, "Why am I working with these low-level schmucks, when I could join this guy and rise through the ranks so much more safely and securely?" For Evil, it's no longer a matter of temptation--it's a matter of mere calculation. And that's a problem when you want a world where the bad guys are genuinely strong and genuinely scary and must be dealt with cautiously.


Put another way, suppose that the other 10 members of the party (I like big parties, OK) want to take the monsters prisoner. Even if he thinks that killing the monsters is the right thing to do, my Evil Necromancer can put the party first - raise his objections & concerns at the time, and raise the dead villagers (killed by the surrendered monsters) into his Undead army later while saying "I told you so". But do you believe that a Good character can so easily ignore his concerns and set aside his morals for the sake of party unity (and still remain Good)?
Being serious about Good requires awareness of the limits of your ability. Willingly signing up for a task you have very good reasons to believe you can't fulfill (imprisoning and guarding the monsters), particularly when you have very good reasons to believe that failure will result in lots of innocent deaths, is already not Good. It's reckless disregard for the safety of others. A character that continues on this path for long would stop being Good anyway, because they're unable to exercise the judgment necessary to find the morally correct action to take. (Again, this is my virtue-ethics perspective speaking.)

Under these circumstances, difficult decisions arise. I have been in a situation similar to this before, myself. We elected to imprison (as best we could) the dangerous but almost surely mind-controlled foes in a crumbling fortress, in order to keep them from hurting anyone else while we delved deeper. We hoped that nothing more would be required; thankfully, it wasn't. If it were, it would probably have become an adventure all by itself to figure out how to free them from their plight without having to kill them.


I'm just not seeing a way that a good character can feel that he has a legitimate moral concern (in this example, "protection of the innocent"), and simply choose to ignore it for the sake of party unity. I'm just not seeing how one can legitimately contend that well-built Evil isn't better for party unity than well-built Good, when Evil can simply put the party first, and Good… can't.
Because you are inflexibly viewing it through one and only one lens. Protection of the innocent is a legitimate moral concern. So is the administration of justice (even Chaotic characters value that--otherwise they wouldn't be able to seek revenge). Sometimes, one has to take moral risks. Sometimes, one cannot take moral risks. Knowing when to do which is an enormous part of developing virtue, e.g. prudence is knowing, for each situation, to apply the correct balance-point between negligence (the vice of deficient prudence) and anxiety (the vice of excessive prudence). "Some vices miss what is right because they are deficient, others because they are excessive, in feelings or in actions, but Virtue finds and chooses the mean." Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics.


D&D is (usually) filled with lots of killing of sentient beings. Classically, while committing a home invasion (as OOTS comments on).
If you choose to run it that way. The group I run for has only killed...maybe two dozen sapient beings over the course of a year and a half of play. Exactly zero of them have been in the context of a home invasion, and all those that could be vaguely analogized to a home invasion (such as one where they were attacked for entering a pottery shop that was a front for druid-terrorist activity, or where they broke into a secret assassin-cult temple to get back stuff that was stolen from them after they were left to die in the desert) were always justified retaliation against violent acts against them, or fighting off invaders to defend the normal inhabitants of the place.


Really, I find it exceedingly difficult to even imagine D&D without any potentially morally challenging situations, given that the general premise is rather full of morally grey.
Certainly. But I yearn for more interesting moral dilemmas than "you're a professional murderhole-diver who feels bad about it." And the above question, where Good must weigh the costs of pursuing the maximally noble but maybe impossible path (imprisoning the monsters) vs. the eminently possible but far less noble path (killing the surrendered monsters, assuming the surrender is genuine).

[AvatarVecna]

Good and Evil characters can be morally flexible, but characters that are to an extent designed around their morality cannot be, and this can be problematic. Certainly there's enough threads in existence about making situations designed to make paladins fall, and honestly that's even if you discount the people acting in bad faith who deliberately make no-win situations - it's just that the paladin code of conduct is (as is kinda appropriate for a super-LG character) pretty strict and easy to break. I'm fairly sure at least half the Knights Of The Round Table, were they built as paladins, would've fallen at multiple points in the mythos, possibly including Arthur himself. But Good isn't the only one that has that particular problem; all the UA variant Paladins have that problem too:


A paladin of slaughter must be of chaotic evil alignment and loses all class abilities if she ever willingly commits a good act. Additionally, a paladin of slaughter's code requires that she disrespect all authority figures who have not proven their physical superiority to her, refuse help to those in need, and sow destruction and death at all opportunities.

Just...just read that again. Consider conceptually what this would require in-game to avoid breaking. That bit I did in an earlier post about how the anti-paladin is basically legally obligated to kick every puppy? Yeah that wasn't a joke.

[zlefin]

Paladin of slaughter is indeed quite difficult to play, though not completely impossible. I wonder how many evil parties could put up with a paladin of slaughter?

[GrayDeath]

If they are Drow only, surprisingly many, I expect. ^^

[Efrate]

Antipaladin works fine in most evil parties. Not commiting a good act if different from total opposition to any good act. He will not save a fallen comrade, it is their fault for being weak, but he will not murder someone who tried to. Not acting is different from committing good, which is different from committing evil.

[hamishspence]

The implication of "Sow death (and destruction) at all opportunities, is that each time you have an opportunity to kill someone, you must try to do it, or Fall.

[Efrate]

That's the same mentality of paladins smiting evil every time anyone pings on detect.

[hamishspence]

It treats the code as a hard-and-fast binding rule.

Just like making a paladin Fall for stealing or lying or "committing an Evil act".

[LordBlades]

The implication of "Sow death (and destruction) at all opportunitie"s, is that each time you have an opportunity to kill someone, you must try to do it, or Fall.

Alternatively, buy 2 sacks of seeds and name them 'Death' and 'Destruction'. Whenever the opportunity arises, sow both Death and Destruction :)

On a more serious note, a lot of the material regarding UA paladins is terrible. Not only is a Paladin of Slaughter required to sow death and destruction, he's also obligated to refuse help to those in need. So if the most savage horde of orcs approaches him saying 'we are in need of a strong leader. join us and we'll slaughter the entire world' he has to say no or fall.

Not that the problem is limited to Evil. Paladin of Freedom code of conduct is equally terrible: he has to 'help those in need (provided they do not use the help for lawful or evil ends), and punish those who threaten or curtail personal liberty'. As written it means he has to refuse almost all quests coming from legitimate authority figures as they would use his help for lawful ends) and constantly fight to dismantle most/all forms of society, as they all curtail individual liberty to some extent.

[hamishspence]

Not that the problem is limited to Evil. Paladin of Freedom code of conduct is equally terrible: he has to 'help those in need (provided they do not use the help for lawful or evil ends), and punish those who threaten or curtail personal liberty'. As written it means he has to refuse almost all quests coming from legitimate authority figures as they would use his help for lawful ends) and constantly fight to dismantle most/all forms of society, as they all curtail individual liberty to some extent.

The Avenger (CG, Dragon 310) is slightly more nuanced than the Paladin of Freedom- but still somewhat restrictive.

You fall for:
Willingly committing an evil act.
Willingly allying with a lawful government or affiliated agency.
Joining any organized association, order, or group (though you may attend services of your church).

You must:
Aid and assist anyone who asks for help (within reason).

Killing should be:
The last resort, when a more appropriate and less destructive form of vengeance will do
Even then, reserved only for the most evil villains.

You may not knowingly associate with evil characters.
You will not continue an association with people who consistently offend your moral code.
You may associate with lawful characters for a limited time.


Interesting note- it's more more Chaos-oriented compared to the Good-oriented paladin of freedom. You get an aura of chaos, detect law, and smite law.

[LordBlades]

The Avenger (CG, Dragon 310) is slightly more nuanced than the Paladin of Freedom- but still somewhat restrictive.

You fall for:
Willingly committing an evil act.
Willingly allying with a lawful government or affiliated agency.
Joining any organized association, order, or group (though you may attend services of your church).

You must:
Aid and assist anyone who asks for help (within reason).

Killing should be:
The last resort, when a more appropriate and less destructive form of vengeance will do
Even then, reserved only for the most evil villains.

You may not knowingly associate with evil characters.
You will not continue an association with people who consistently offend your moral code.
You may associate with lawful characters for a limited time.


Interesting note- it's more more Chaos-oriented compared to the Good-oriented paladin of freedom. You get an aura of chaos, detect law, and smite law.

Thanks for pointing this out, I was unaware of it :)

It;s still problematic as written though : You fall for Joining any organized association, order, or group. So the moment your adventuring party becomes in any way organized your choices are leave or fall

[Vaern]

Exalted Deeds takes some very absolute values for 'good', as if any character with a good alignment is not just a paragon of virtue but a paragon of every virtue.
That's not necessarily true. It does list a number of acts that it regards as being objectively good, but a good character does not necessarily follow all of these guidelines. A good character may, for example, go out of his way to help those in need, but not be too keen on offering forgiveness or redemption to those who have committed evil acts. The average good character is driven to do the right thing, but they don't have to be paragons of virtue. There are, of course, three exceptions, being good outsiders, paladins, and exalted characters.

Outsiders are the physical manifestation of the essence of their home plane, and therefore outsiders of a good plane with the good subtype are literally the physical incarnation of the essence of Good.
Paladins have always been meant to be paragons of their alignment. Some may argue that the paladin's divine abilities are not bestowed upon him by a greater power, as clerics' abilities are, but rather that they manifest themselves within him simply by nature of his extreme devotion to righteousness. And perhaps this is why paladins are typically more vulnerable to losing their abilities than, for example, a cleric of a good deity - because it's not a god judging him and taking his powers away, it's him judging himself for not living up to his own standards. Even in this regard, a paladin has a bit of leeway as they are also equally Lawful and are obligated to act thusly - if the laws that they serve says that an evildoer should be punished by death but their good nature suggests that they should show mercy, then you might argue that both courses of action are proper for the paladin to take.
Exalted characters are paragons of their Good alignment, in the same way that Vile characters take their Evil alignment to the extreme. If the alignment grid was extended beyond Good and Evil, then Exalted and Vile would be on the farthest edges. In order to take an exalted feat, for example, the Book of Exalted Deeds says that a character must be of good alignment and of the highest moral standards, indicating that you can be Good without upholding every virtue associated with the alignment, but Exalted characters are held to a much higher standard than Good. Upon taking an exalted feat and being marked as an Exalted character, you emit an aura as though you were a paladin whose level equals your hit dice. These are the characters that the list of "rules" at the beginning of BoED is intended for. You aren't expected to be a "perfect" person to be a Good character, but you are to be considered Exalted.

[Conradine]

What's the difference betwen a "normal" evil character and a Vile one, then?

[hamishspence]

A Vile character is respected enough by the Forces Of Evil (fiends, evil gods) for them to grant that character Vile feats - which they can take away if the character offends them enough. They don't automatically lose their Vile feat for any Good act though - so it's not an exact mirroring of Exalted.

[lord_khaine]

Antipaladin works fine in most evil parties. Not commiting a good act if different from total opposition to any good act. He will not save a fallen comrade, it is their fault for being weak, but he will not murder someone who tried to. Not acting is different from committing good, which is different from committing evil.

Here i think its important to point out the social contract between players, since it becomes kinda relevant.
Because realistically speaking. I dont think anyone would want to enter into something so insanely dangerous as adventuring,
with someone they could not rely on to help them if they were down.

But at the same time its kinda hard to kick a player from the group, so you end with party members there really should not be there.
Thats one of the places where is important for the DM to carefully evaluate how disruptive an evil PC would be.

[Efrate]

Lots of characters adventure without knowing their party. Nearly every adventure starts with a group of random people taking a job together that they know is likely dangerous and without knowing one another. Money, fame, glory, personal strength etc; they are willing to take risks that a normal person would to get something. If they weren't they wouldn't be adventurers, they would still be a farmer like their parents or an apprentice to a trade or what have you.

Same reason the Prince, the executive etc. Adventures. They could join organization x and work their way up the ranks over time with relative safety, or they could start their own organization by amassing personal power in the form of levels, magic items, whatever, then starting at the top. It takes maybe
120 days of adventuring to go from leve, one to 20 at 4 encounters a day 13 encounters a level. Easily within a year in game time, doable in 4 months if you are driven and do not stop. 6 months much more reasonably. How much could you move up in an organization in 6 months? 2 ranks? And you still work for the godfather as opposed to being the godfather, With your own followers and lackeys as opposed to using someone else's.

You take the big risks you get the big rewards. It's a LOT easier than "legitimately" moving up, and ridiculously faster.

[zlefin]

The implication of "Sow death (and destruction) at all opportunities, is that each time you have an opportunity to kill someone, you must try to do it, or Fall.

I'd say that depends on whether the DM is trying to push the code extra far.
I'd say opportunity also requires a credible chance, if others would prevent you from killing it's not really an opportunity.
The one paladin of slaughter equivalent I've seen was quite entertaining (admittedly it's in a story you read than one being played).

[Vaern]

Here i think its important to point out the social contract between players, since it becomes kinda relevant.
Because realistically speaking. I dont think anyone would want to enter into something so insanely dangerous as adventuring,
with someone they could not rely on to help them if they were down.

But at the same time its kinda hard to kick a player from the group, so you end with party members there really should not be there.
Thats one of the places where is important for the DM to carefully evaluate how disruptive an evil PC would be.

I'd like to think the good and evil characters in the same party would be able to rely on each other to keep each other in their feet, especially when doing something as insanely dangerous as adventuring.
A good character would be encouraged to heal a fallen evil companion because it's generally the right thing to do.
An evil character would be encouraged to heal a fallen good companion because they're together in an insanely dangerous environment, his ass is on the line, and it'll be safer with the extra meat shield by his side to soak damage. Also, the guy is unconscious and most heals are touch range, which is a perfect opportunity to roll a sleight of hands check to pocket a bit of coin.
Regardless of their characters' intentions, though, the players are there to have fun, an to that end, as you have mentioned, there is a kind of social contact between the players to not needlessly screw each other over.

And it may not be easy to kick a player out of a group, but you can certainly kick a character out of a party. I've seen several occasions where players have had to roll up a new character because their previous one had been a jerk, and even a couple of players retire their own character from the party to reroll when it became apparent that their character didn't contribute as much as they had hoped.
I've even had someone join one of my groups for two or three sessions as an evil character, having previously made plans with the DM to backstab the party, disappear into the ocean, and then have his character run as an NPC to later be revealed to be the main villain of the campaign for years to come. If an evil character is going to become an active problem for the party like this, planning it out with the DM beforehand so he can work it into the story on a way that makes the game ultimately more fun and interesting in the long run for the people that are being betrayed is the correct way to go about it.

[Jay R]

For me, it's purely about what I believe in and what I enjoy.

I am willing to spend hours preparing a world and a scenario so my friends can pretend to be heroic.

I am not willing to spend hours preparing a world and a scenario so my friends can pretend to be villainous.

[Quertus]

Some do, some don't. I'll grant you that it's easier for them to have it, but the example you gave wasn't about good characters being unable to do evil things, but good characters arguing over a course of action when their beliefs on what the right thing to do conflicted. Evil characters are just as likely to come into conflict with one another, even over the exact same things. A Lawful Evil Knight of Hextor and a Chaotic Evil Cleric of Grumsh are probably going to come into all sorts of conflict about how their party should behave in any number of circumstances, including the disposition of a surrendering enemy. Being evil doesn't make them any more likely to come to an accord than a Paladin and a good aligned Rogue.

If anything, evil parties are more likely to implode because generally speaking good parties take 'murdering your party members in their sleep' (or even to their faces) completely off the table, when those conflicts inevitably do arise. :p

Must be nice to have good characters who won't murder you in your sleep. :smallannoyed:

You're getting into personality and religion. Let's ignore that. If you've got two evil characters, one Lawful, one Chaotic, who disagree, but their Prime Directive is "for the party", what can't they solve? A good character cannot do what he believes wrong, even "for the party", and still remain Good. But what can't Evil suck up "for the party"?


There is a difference between "less flexible" and "utterly inflexible." Your presentation comes across as a false dichotomy; either characters are totally flexible, or they're totally inflexible, and because Good is (debatably) less flexible than Evil, that must mean Good is totally inflexible.

By RAW, Good cannot do but so much Evil and still be Good, right? Good's kinda inflexible that way.


As for Evil's alleged flexibility: I agree that it can be flexible in some ways that Good isn't. But it's also inflexible in some ways Good isn't.

In what way(s) is evil inflexible?


Evil always needs a reason for acting. It needs to benefit in some identifiable, concrete way--noting that "having a good reputation" is something I consider "concrete" in this context. Good doesn't need a reason to do Good--it just does it because that's what it does. Evil, or at least anything I would call worthy of the name, MUST be convinced. Sometimes, the convincing is done in advance, but it always has to be done. That's an important and serious point of inflexibility

1) take this "Good" character who just does good. Have him UMD (even unknowingly) X [evil] spells. He is now Evil. And continues to "just do good", because that's what he does. No reason required.

2) IMO, any real sentient beings need reasons. Period. ("Believing it's the right thing" is a reason)

3) not only does "any *real* evil needs to be convinced" smell of "no true Scotsman", but

3a) that seems a rather limited view of Evil (even compared to D&D's laughable oversimplification);

3b) I don't think you really want to argue that Bilbo Frodo etc were Evil just because they needed convincing, do you?

3c) I grew up on the Hobbit, so my good characters need convincing, whereas my evil characters will usually just do X because "the party". Evil doesn't need a (specific) reason. Evil can put the party first in ways good simply cannot.


. For a DM like me, who gets very uncomfortable when the players start doing things or even threatening to do things that are morally suspect (torture, for example), this means that every. single. adventure. now has to be justified, "worth the effort" in the eyes of the Evil party member(s), or else we have a party split.

This sounds like two (or more) completely unrelated statements: you have limits; evil needs reasons. Your limits are covered under the gentleman's agreement; I've already covered how evil needs fewer reasons than good.

So, I figure I'm just missing your point here. What were you really trying to say?


To say nothing of Evil party members--even serious, mature ones--having to constantly ask themselves, "Why am I working with these low-level schmucks, when I could join this guy and rise through the ranks so much more safely and securely?" For Evil, it's no longer a matter of temptation--it's a matter of mere calculation. And that's a problem when you want a world where the bad guys are genuinely strong and genuinely scary and must be dealt with cautiously.

Friendship. Because "the party". That's all the reason evil needs. Good *also* needs "because it's the right thing to do".


Being serious about Good requires awareness of the limits of your ability. Willingly signing up for a task you have very good reasons to believe you can't fulfill (imprisoning and guarding the monsters), particularly when you have very good reasons to believe that failure will result in lots of innocent deaths, is already not Good. It's reckless disregard for the safety of others. A character that continues on this path for long would stop being Good anyway, because they're unable to exercise the judgment necessary to find the morally correct action to take. (Again, this is my virtue-ethics perspective speaking.)

Although I may not disagree with that sentiment IRL, I think that's a bit harsher than D&D Good requires. I'm just asking, can a Good character ignore what they believe to be Right, and still remain Good?

Because an Evil character can darn well not just ignore what they believe to be Evil, but actively do what they know to be Good, and still remain Evil. Atonement is a lot harder than just doing a few Good acts.


Because you are inflexibly viewing it through one and only one lens. Protection of the innocent is a legitimate moral concern. So is the administration of justice (even Chaotic characters value that--otherwise they wouldn't be able to seek revenge). Sometimes, one has to take moral risks. Sometimes, one cannot take moral risks. Knowing when to do which is an enormous part of developing virtue, e.g. prudence is knowing, for each situation, to apply the correct balance-point between negligence (the vice of deficient prudence) and anxiety (the vice of excessive prudence). "Some vices miss what is right because they are deficient, others because they are excessive, in feelings or in actions, but Virtue finds and chooses the mean." Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics.

So, when your party of "good" men are not all perfectly prudent, not all omniscient, and come to different decisions regarding what is "good"?

Evil is much more able to shrug off a "wrong" decision "for the party".


If you choose to run it that way. The group I run for has only killed...maybe two dozen sapient beings over the course of a year and a half of play. Exactly zero of them have been in the context of a home invasion, and all those that could be vaguely analogized to a home invasion (such as one where they were attacked for entering a pottery shop that was a front for druid-terrorist activity, or where they broke into a secret assassin-cult temple to get back stuff that was stolen from them after they were left to die in the desert) were always justified retaliation against violent acts against them, or fighting off invaders to defend the normal inhabitants of the place.

Whereas we usually kill dozens, often kill hundreds, and sometimes kill thousands (or millions :smalleek:) of sentient beings per session. Alongside home invasions, grave robbing, slave trading, desecration of the dead, etc - most of which are the bread and butter of Gygaxian gaming.


Certainly. But I yearn for more interesting moral dilemmas than "you're a professional murderhole-diver who feels bad about it." And the above question, where Good must weigh the costs of pursuing the maximally noble but maybe impossible path (imprisoning the monsters) vs. the eminently possible but far less noble path (killing the surrendered monsters, assuming the surrender is genuine).

… which sounds to me like a good reason to play evil characters, to just shrug past those boring moral questions, so you can get to the good stuff, no?

[ezekielraiden]

Must be nice to have good characters who won't murder you in your sleep. :smallannoyed:

You're getting into personality and religion. Let's ignore that. If you've got two evil characters, one Lawful, one Chaotic, who disagree, but their Prime Directive is "for the party", what can't they solve? A good character cannot do what he believes wrong, even "for the party", and still remain Good. But what can't Evil suck up "for the party"?
Any problem where at least one of those evil party members calculates that, in this case, the good of the party actually isn't in their best interest. That's the whole point. An Evil character cannot categorically put the good of the party first. There will always be an exception. There will always be reasons why, even for the most congenial Evil character, they would gladly betray their "friends." Because they don't actually value friendship for itself, nor literally anything else for itself. They can't, that's part of what makes Evil what it is. That's a pretty serious form of inflexibility, demanding that everything have fundamental instrumental, rather than intrinsic, value.


By RAW, Good cannot do but so much Evil and still be Good, right? Good's kinda inflexible that way.
I never said Good was perfectly flexible. I'm saying that you are casting this as a dichotomy, with Evil absolutely, perfectly, 100% flexible (which is not true) and Good absolutely, perfectly, 0% flexible (which is also not true). Good has more flexibility than you give it credit for--admittedly, it is constrained, but are we not also told that "restriction breeds creativity"?


In what way(s) is evil inflexible?
It can only value things instrumentally. Always. That's kind of a problem when instrumental value is thin on the ground, isn't it?

Beyond that, anything I would consider real Evil must be callous. It can't act with genuine altruism, mercy, or kindness--because those things are all behavior dependent on valuing other people as people, rather than as things. (Something Red Fel mentions: the vast majority of sapient beings are nobodies, things, to Lawful Evil.) You can show clemency (reduced punishment) or give benefits, but it must always be for an instrumental reason (indebting them to you, or securing a particular kind of reputation in order to enable future plans, etc.) Again, these are inflexibilities based on the inability to do anything for any non-instrumental reason.


1) take this "Good" character who just does good. Have him UMD (even unknowingly) X [evil] spells. He is now Evil. And continues to "just do good", because that's what he does. No reason required.
A bovine fecal portion of the alignment system, sure. I excise these things because they're obviously stupid. If that's a problem, I'm sorry, but I'm not interested in playing a game where the rules are actively stupid.


2) IMO, any real sentient beings need reasons. Period. ("Believing it's the right thing" is a reason)
I was less articulate than I should have been. Everyone "needs a reason," if all you mean by that is "well you do something rather than not doing something." I mean, for Evil characters, they cannot ever, for any reason, under any circumstance, do something for its intrinsic value. You step away from pure Evil every single time you actually value something, or someone, purely for itself, and not for how useful it is. (You don't, notably, specifically step toward Good when you do this; valuing things intrinsically is a necessary condition, but NOT a sufficient one, for becoming Good.)


3) not only does "any *real* evil needs to be convinced" smell of "no true Scotsman", but
Do you disagree that being Evil means only valuing things instrumentally? Do you disagree that it is possible to declare a character is "Evil" and yet fail to actually, y'now, be Evil? I'm not pulling a fallacy here. I'm relying on what I take Evil to mean--exclusively valuing things instrumentally, never intrinsically--to say that there are a lot of things people call "Evil" that...aren't.


3b) I don't think you really want to argue that Bilbo Frodo etc were Evil just because they needed convincing, do you?

3c) I grew up on the Hobbit, so my good characters need convincing, whereas my evil characters will usually just do X because "the party". Evil doesn't need a (specific) reason. Evil can put the party first in ways good simply cannot.
Certainly not. They're Neutral. And Evil cannot put the party first unequivocally, whereas Good can, under the right circumstances. (It's not guaranteed.)


This sounds like two (or more) completely unrelated statements: you have limits; evil needs reasons. Your limits are covered under the gentleman's agreement; I've already covered how evil needs fewer reasons than good.

So, I figure I'm just missing your point here. What were you really trying to say?
Again I apologize for being inarticulate. What I meant was: in my games, I absolutely won't allow any of the kinds of stories that allow Evil to behave as it naturally does, aka using and treating people as objects, as mere things. And even if I'm a player, I'm going to react extremely badly to those kinds of stories coming up. Therefore, an Evil character never gets any opportunity to do, or maybe even threaten to do, the kinds of things that allow them to retain the Evil alignment meaningfully. This means an Evil character would only get to express their alignment through actively resisting any effort to do things for their intrinsic value, and must therefore always be provided with instrumental reasons for every single adventure the party goes on. That beggars belief and strains group engagement--I cannot justify there always being a suitable reward, or reputation increase, or what-have-you. And then all of this is juxtaposed against "so....we're going up against some EXTREMELY powerful villains, who are actively recruiting and have already proven themselves capable of a lot of things, and would let me do Evil things without constantly resisting me. Why am I on Team Good again?"

And no, I don't think my limits are covered under a Gentleman's Agreement. Something to clarify here is, I actually feel morally wrong if I do literally anything wicked or wrong in, for example, CRPGs. I literally can't bring myself to do "dark side" or "genocide" routes or whatever, because doing so makes me feel wretched, guilty, sometimes even physically pained (the last only happened once when I was blindsided by a choice being INCREDIBLY evil when it sounded completely innocent, but still, it happened.) So any Gentleman's Agreement I'm going into is going to land really really far on the "absolutely no dirty business" side of things. I have been Team Dad in nearly every group I play in because of it. An Evil party member engaging in anything meaningfully Evil is going to be an enormous problem at my table, and even the threat of it is something to be used extremely cautiously (lying is, after all, not a great thing either--and if the person is serious, that's almost worse!)

I'm not a jerk or a moral policeman about it. I take extremely seriously the "Paladins with Class" article--real moral leadership means earning respect, not being rancorous or nasty. But there's at best an extremely narrow path for Evil to walk and be, y'know, at all worth the name, rather than being Neutral. Better to be honest with players and just tell them, "No, don't bother, I probably wouldn't let you do the things you wanted to do with it anyway." No yanking the player's chain or pretending the situation is different from what it is.


Friendship. Because "the party". That's all the reason evil needs. Good *also* needs "because it's the right thing to do".
Nope. Friendship alone cannot ever be an Evil motive. Because Evil cannot value the friendship for itself. Red Fel even explicitly said this. Evil can only value the friendship for how useful it is. If something can be calculated to be more useful, Evil will gladly betray even the deepest friend, the closest confidant.


Although I may not disagree with that sentiment IRL, I think that's a bit harsher than D&D Good requires. I'm just asking, can a Good character ignore what they believe to be Right, and still remain Good?
Is there more than one thing that can be Right, though? How sure are you that there is only one, common measuring stick for the Good-ness of an action?


Because an Evil character can darn well not just ignore what they believe to be Evil, but actively do what they know to be Good, and still remain Evil. Atonement is a lot harder than just doing a few Good acts.
I disagree. Again, I may be using the term "Evil" differently than you are. An Evil person exclusively values things instrumentally. Thus, an Evil person cannot do something solely for its intrinsic value. To do so would be to take an anti-Evil action, would be to violate what it *means* to be Evil.


So, when your party of "good" men are not all perfectly prudent, not all omniscient, and come to different decisions regarding what is "good"?
Then we have an actually interesting situation, don't we? We have to really think, not merely calculate. We must judge values, not merely sum terms. That's what interests me--real moral thought, rather than simple utility-function estimation.


Evil is much more able to shrug off a "wrong" decision "for the party".
I entirely disagree. Unless you have more to it than fiat declaration, it doesn't seem we have much to discuss on that front.


Whereas we usually kill dozens, often kill hundreds, and sometimes kill thousands (or millions :smalleek:) of sentient beings per session. Alongside home invasions, grave robbing, slave trading, desecration of the dead, etc - most of which are the bread and butter of Gygaxian gaming.
Sure. Most player characters are not Good, and are probably Evil, regardless of what their character sheets say. They do not act with mercy or justice, they act with selfishness, callousness, and calculation. I see this as a flaw in most players' ability to make moral decisions, not in the concept of Good or the concept of Evil.


… which sounds to me like a good reason to play evil characters, to just shrug past those boring moral questions, so you can get to the good stuff, no?
...howso? Because Evil exclusively values things instrumentally, it has no moral quandaries. There are no agonizing decisions. You calculate; it's that simple. And if the values are fuzzy or the future payoff uncertain, you make an arbitrary judgment call. That's it. There is no trying to reconcile incommensurate values, because you only have one ultimate value: power. Again, Red Fel explicitly said this. Good has at least the potential for incommensurate values, having to resolve seemingly unresolvable conflicts, or needing to forego one intrinsically desirable thing because it would cost too much of some other intrinsically desirable thing.

Specifically Lawful Evil adds a handful of variably applicable restrictions (adherence to Law), but the fundamental truth remains that Evil values power and basically nothing else. Red Fel even defined friendship as an exchange of power. If that exchange ceases to be the optimal distribution of one's power, or if a clearly superior exchange happens along (meaning it outweighs the losses due to betrayal, not just to losing the old friendship), Evil is not only not motivated to stay, it is actively motivated to break the old friendship and take the new deal. To do otherwise is to specifically act against Evil. Do that too often, and you aren't really Evil, are you?

[hamishspence]

An Evil character cannot categorically put the good of the party first. There will always be an exception. There will always be reasons why, even for the most congenial Evil character, they would gladly betray their "friends." Because they don't actually value friendship for itself, nor literally anything else for itself. They can't, that's part of what makes Evil what it is.

IMO, your definition of Evil is too narrow. A character who is a mix of traits - genuinely altruistic, and genuinely cruel, can be Evil, not Neutral. You don't have to be The Embodiment of Pure Selfishness to be Evil - you just need to show a pattern of doing evil things.

There's plenty of support for this in the splatbooks - Evil characters can "value something like friendship" (BoVD).

Evil characters compartmentalise (Savage Species). They can be capable of loving others - for real, not just as extensions of themselves.

A an Evil person cannot do something solely for its intrinsic value. To do so would be to take an anti-Evil action, would be to violate what it *means* to be Evil.
Only two Evil Classes are banned from committing Good Deeds (under penalty of losing their class abilities) - the Paladin of Tyranny and the Paladin of Slaughter.

For all other Evil characters - committing Good deeds is perfectly acceptable - as long as the pattern of Evil deeds remains consistent.


The Giant said it best:

http://www.giantitp.com/articles/XbsQgS9YYu9g3HZBAGE.html

In an old campaign, I had introduced two completely evil villains. Both had plans to conquer the world, and I had let the PCs know that they had known each other a century earlier. When the players discovered that they were working together, they couldn't understand it. "Why help each other?" they asked themselves, "It would make more sense to go it alone."

"Wait," said one player, "I bet that one is planning on helping the other up to a point, and then turning on him." They all agreed that this must be the reason for their alliance, and even formulated a plan to "warn" the lesser of the two evils about the other's presumed treachery. This was a solution that was arrived at by a fairly logical process, but it was completely and utterly incorrect.

What the players had failed to consider was that the two villains were simply friends. They had grown up together, and trusted each other implicitly despite having every logical reason to not trust one another at all. The fact was that the villains were letting their emotional attachment to each other override strict logic; they had made an agreement to share control of the world, and both were intending to follow through. Further, by contacting the "lesser" villain, the PCs had accidentally tipped their hand that they knew the two were working together, allowing the villains to set up an ambush for the players in a future session. By relying on logic and logic alone, the players had gravely miscalculated their foes.

So, how does one create realistic emotional responses? First, remember that alignment is a guide, not a strait-jacket. Not even for NPCs. Evil characters can love, good characters can hate.

[LordBlades]

It doesn't even need to be an irrational emotional response.

Us vs. Them is a valid pattern of thought for an Evil character.

You can be a loving father/brother/neighbor/friend/etc. to whoever is part of 'Us' while visiting unspeakable atrocities onto 'Them'. Hell, you might even be convinced you have to do it because it protects 'Us'.

[ezekielraiden]

IMO, your definition of Evil is too narrow. A character who is a mix of traits - genuinely altruistic, and genuinely cruel, can be Evil, not Neutral. You don't have to be The Embodiment of Pure Selfishness to be Evil - you just need to show a pattern of doing evil things.
I don't think someone can have both of those traits at the same time, but perhaps that's a matter of bad examples than a problem with the underlying logic. I still think Red Fel's own points back up my argument: that at least LE engages in friendship because it gets more power than it gives, and that the very idea of friendship purely for hanging out (befriending someone just for their company, with no real exchange of benefits) is very strange for LE, not necessarily alien but pretty close.


There's plenty of support for this in the splatbooks - Evil characters can "value something like friendship" (BoVD).
It's the "something like" part that I have a problem with. It's not actual friendship. That's the whole point.


Evil characters compartmentalise (Savage Species). They can be capable of loving others - for real, not just as extensions of themselves.
What exactly does this "love" mean? I mean, if we're going to drill down about definitions and toss "no true scotsman" into the mix, what's "real" love?


For all other Evil characters - committing Good deeds is perfectly acceptable - as long as the pattern of Evil deeds remains consistent.
That's sort of my point. They're defying their Evil nature to do these things. Break that pattern enough, and you aren't Evil. You don't have to become Good, but you aren't Evil. Good, likewise, has the potential to break the pattern and become Neutral--or even Evil, with sufficiently egregious pattern-breaking. Evil isn't "everything that isn't Good."

For my part, the piece you quoted defends my position; these villains have stepped away from Evil. They are less than fully Evil. Heck, they may even be Neutral. Neutral (and on rare occasions Good) can still be villainous. Specifically this bolded part:


What the players had failed to consider was that the two villains were simply friends. They had grown up together, and trusted each other implicitly despite having every logical reason to not trust one another at all. The fact was that the villains were letting their emotional attachment to each other override strict logic; they had made an agreement to share control of the world, and both were intending to follow through. Further, by contacting the "lesser" villain, the PCs had accidentally tipped their hand that they knew the two were working together, allowing the villains to set up an ambush for the players in a future session. By relying on logic and logic alone, the players had gravely miscalculated their foes.
They were, very specifically, violating their Evil alignment by retaining a friendship despite it costing them more than it gave them. They were willfully turning down actually good opportunities, because the friendship mattered more to them than its pure instrumental value. That's the opposite of an Evil act. It's not a Good act, but it's definitely the reverse of Evil--something that pushes them away from Evil.

If we think of Good and Evil as...say, flotation, where you have the air/water interface as Neutrality. There are things that can prevent you from flying but wouldn't make you sink (anti-Good, but not Evil). There are things that can prevent you from sinking, but won't make you fly (anti-Evil, but not Good). If you want to stay Evil, you can't take actions that push you too close to the surface--whether they're Good acts, or merely anti-Evil ones. There's only so far you can go before you've left the abyss. This analogy (despite being imperfect, as all analogies are!) even has some of the "Evil is more flexible but not perfectly flexible" built in. If you want to stay flying, you can't take on too much weight--it doesn't matter how aerodynamic you are, if you suddenly strap a 200-ton weight you're going to fall *and* sink--like a stone. But fill up enough ballast with hot helium, and it doesn't matter whether you're at the bottom of the Marianas trench or just puttering around in the bathypelagic zone, you're shooting to the surface. Taking flight is a lot harder than sinking, and staying aloft is a lot harder than falling, but that doesn't mean either side is rigidly confined.


So, how does one create realistic emotional responses? First, remember that alignment is a guide, not a strait-jacket. Not even for NPCs. Evil characters can love, good characters can hate.
See above about the "what is love" (baby don't hurt me etc.), because we may be talking past each other on this.

Heck, even if I grant you that this shows Evil is absolutely perfectly hyperflexible, doesn't that mean it also defends Good being not dogmatically inflexible?

~~~~~

Having discussed it with one of my players, I think a big part of the problem is:
I really struggle to see much of the "Evil" people talk about here as...actually Evil. It sounds mostly like the dark side of Neutral, or someone flirting with Evil without actually crossing the line. Pointedly avoiding crossing that line, even. It's perfectly fine, even good, for a Neutral character to do wicked things, and be a major villain. Villainy and Evil are not identical sets. It really feels like a lot of people here are squeezing Neutral out of the picture completely; either a character is Good, and thus so thoroughly constrained as to have no choices and be utterly unable to deal with something as simple as "two of my values conflict"; or a character is Evil, and thus omnicapable, able to do whatever they want, whenever they want, because Evil is beholden to no rules whatsoever and once you go Evil you're utterly free to act as you like (within your "ethical alignment" anyway). I don't buy literally any part of that. Neutral exists, and needs to occupy real and meaningful space, it's not exclusively being wishy-washy about whether you're Good or Evil. Good is not a straightjacket any more than Evil is. Evil is not moral carte blanche, it absolutely should have meaningful lines it can't cross or it just becomes "the alignment of people who do things, as opposed to the alignment of fools who do nothing."

All alignments should be able to accidentally drift into one another. It should be possible for an Evil person to do enough anti-Evil (or even Good) things that they stop being properly Evil anymore. How is that possible, if Evil is so flexible that it can always do whatever it wants, whenever it wants?

Also, a major part of my problems with the "arbitrary alignment" thing is...I play multiple systems. Many of them are D&D-linked or D&D-descended, but still. They don't all treat alignment the same way. Therefore, I have to use a more general, useful kind of alignment. Something consistent and actionable, regardless of the system I'm using. As a result, I expect a system to need me to review its moral systems, because they probably aren't consistent, or at least have some kind of flaw here or there. (Most RPG authors have little to no experience with ethical philosophy, just as they usually have little to no experience with statistics, both of which are serious flaws given they explicitly make systems that invoke both things at a deeply fundamental level.)

[Efrate]

Having friends and valuing them is not anti evil. Anti-evil would be something good, kind of by definition, and friendship is at most neutral.

Evil does not necessarily have to put value X on every act, person or thought and only act if the equation comes out in their favor. Certain flavors of evil do, but not all of them.

Evil would be much less of a problem if it did that for everything because it would be largely inactive and evil is a very real part if the dungeons and dragons world. You can love some people, be a great parent, have a ton a friend's that you treat well with no immediate value to you, and still murder your business rival that moves into town for personal gain. You know, to protect your livelihood and your ability to care for your family. You are just willing to take the most direct and effective route when opportunity presents itself, but you are not required to kick every puppy along the way.

Making dynamic villains, dynamic characters, requires humanizing evil (or good). Make a complete character with hopes, dreams, goals, family and friends. They can still be evil, be believable and be great.

[hamishspence]

For my part, the piece you quoted defends my position; these villains have stepped away from Evil.

From the quote:


I had introduced two completely evil villains.
The Giant makes it crystal clear that they are Evil and friends.


I interpret "Value something like friendship" from BoVD as

"Value something good, such as friendship"

"Even evil characters can value such a generally good (lowercase G) thing as friendship"


Neutral exists, and needs to occupy real and meaningful space, it's not exclusively being wishy-washy about whether you're Good or Evil.

There's a number of ways of being Neutral.

One is to commit a roughly balanced amount of Evil and Good. Typically, such a person is a flexible Neutral antihero, who only commits Evil deeds with good intentions. Heroes Of Horror suggests that all Neutral Dread Necromancers are of this type. At the low end of the "seriousness of the acts" scale - the character may just be a commoner who is occasionally spiteful, and occasionally kind, roughly equally.

Another is to be the kind of person who generally does not commit either Evil or Good - is fundamentally hostile to both. Someone who never helps anybody without the expectation of reward - and outright despises altruism- but would never consider robbing the innocent either, even to save their own life - and outright despises "looters" of any kind. In short - the kind of hero of an Ayn Rand novel or similar fictions.


It's perfectly fine, even good, for a Neutral character to do wicked things, and be a major villain.


To be neutral, you must either balance your Evil with your Good, or try to avoid committing Evil at all.

[Psychoalpha]

Must be nice to have good characters who won't murder you in your sleep.

If good characters are considering going so far as to murder your character in its sleep, then you're either playing with bad players or you're doing so much objectively evil stuff that ignoring it is no longer an option, in which case that's on you.


You're getting into personality and religion. Let's ignore that.

Good and Evil are not characters, they are aspects of characters. If your character is wholly defined by one single element of one single facet of their character, then the problems are so much bigger than flexible vs inflexible.


Whereas we usually kill dozens, often kill hundreds, and sometimes kill thousands (or millions ) of sentient beings per session. Alongside home invasions, grave robbing, slave trading, desecration of the dead, etc - most of which are the bread and butter of Gygaxian gaming.

Yeeeeaaah, wow. I think this really says all that needs to be said about why your perspective on this is the way it is.

---

ezekielraiden, I was more or less with you at first, but you lost me around the time you started defining good and evil characters in such an incredibly strict light that it's about as strange as Quertus' perspective is.

People are complicated, and the line between Good / Neutral / Evil is a blurry one. Even Quertus' example of casting X [Evil] spells illustrates that: What is X? At some point your general pattern of behavior is more good or evil than neutral, but how many acts cause the shift? How many would cause you to slide back? How long does the pattern persist until you go from good to evil or evil to good?

None of that stuff is, outside of some truly atrocious examples, well defined. The vast majority of Good or Evil characters are not made of purely good or evil actions and motivations. A Lawful Evil guard captain can be absolutely merciless and cruel to beggers, wretches, thieves, whatever, while still going home to his wife and children who he loves very much. He may even justify his harsh, uncompromising cruelty as doing what's necessary to protect them, or out of frustration that the flow of criminals never ends, which makes them always in danger. The fact that he can love in the same way a good character does doesn't make him not evil, it just means he's not irredeemably evil.

Evil as you describe it is more akin to the [Evil] subtype. That's not to say that characters can't be that irredeemably evil, but to apply it to the whole spectrum of characters with evil alignments is just as off base as trying to do the opposite with good characters. People are complicated, and there is no one size fits all for good and evil, outside of the handful of examples of one size fitting all. :p

Also I feel like you're misreading the context of the 'something like friendship' line, though it's possible I'm the one reading it wrong since I don't have BoVD up and it's been a while. My understanding of it was that it was saying that evil characters are perfectly capable of valuing 'some things', and when you're going to specify a specific thing you'd write it like 'value something like friendship'. Emphasis on friendship, not on something.

UPDATE: I just caught the tail end of your most recent post and I'm too lazy to redo everything I wrote above, but it does put your issue into better perspective.


I really struggle to see much of the "Evil" people talk about here as...actually Evil.

See above re: the line. You're Neutral until you're not, but it's not like crossing that line suddenly makes you just as evil as a Balor or something. The guy above might have been Lawful Neutral until his cruelty crossed the line too often for whatever metaphysical forces govern the energies of good and evil in D&D, but that doesn't suddenly eradicate his love of his family or his friendship with Bob or mean he starts kicking his dog instead of petting it. He might be on the road to all of those chings changing if what he views as necessary cruelty comes to be something he enjoys, etc, but it's not as if tagging him with evil means he must be evil in all ways and value nothing outside of cold calculations.

Frankly I think most PCs would be Neutral regardless of what's on their sheets, because as has been noted, a lot of what common adventures cause you to be involved in is often pretty ambiguous at best when you get down to the nitty gritty details of what you're doing.

I do agree that evil should have lines it can't cross, just like good does, but I think it's probably more complicated than that. The stories that inspire the genre are full of heroes or regular people who fall to evil and then go on to blah blah blah, while most of our stories of redemption from evil to good or... well, just not evil, tend to be end-of-life stuff. Sacrificing yourself in a purely altruistic act of love, that sort of thing. There's not usually a ton of "Well, Todd used to torture children with acid and poison but now he's running a homeless shelter and mentoring disabled toddlers with a heart of gold." stories, though I've seen a few.

[Lvl45DM!]

What's the difference betwen a "normal" evil character and a Vile one, then?

Gameplay wise this has been covered, but I just ran an evil campaign for a while where the characters went from normal evil to Vile.
The normal evil guys had a dread necromancer raising zombies to do his bidding, an anarchist bomb-throwing rogue who liked burning down govt buildings in every city as they left, a warblade who killed a kobold for disrespecting him, tracked down the kobolds family, got hired to find their son's killer, killed a random dwarf claimed the bounty, and then slaughtered all the kobolds for the dwarfs family.

Then as the campaign went on, lots of characters died and they got new ones and they got steadily more evil.
The cannibal cleric who would enthrall a tavern into serving The Great Devourer and throw a cannibalistic orgy, to use the sacrificed victims to make magic items. The 1/2 dragon who picked up soul-eater from BoVD and denied his enemies an afterlife. The scout who sought forbidden knowledge, found it, and went around spreading it as far as possible driving people insane. And the vermin lord with Diogenes syndrome, would decide he needed random items, and swarm the owners, strip them to the bone and take their left boot.

Theres a...gratuitousness to Vile evil. All of these guys except the vermin lord were polite and affable, didnt fly into rages or anything and were subtle enough to get away scot-free. They took quests and were functioning members of society. But they believed in Evil. Not just in themselves or in doing whatever they wanted. They stared into the abyss and winked at it saying "come here, tiger"

[Conradine]

An Evil person exclusively values things instrumentally.

No one is 100% rational all time. Evil characters have emotions and istincts like everyone else.

[Lvl45DM!]

No one is 100% rational all time. Evil characters have emotions and istincts like everyone else.

Agreed, also thats just Neutral Evil. Lawful evil can believe in non-instrumental things like honor and honesty and Chaotic Evil beings can believe in things like freedom. I have played a Chaotic Evil character who was more opposed to slavery than the Neutral and Good characters in the party. (Not that they were for it, but my character was 100% against it and nearly got us all killed freeing the slaves.) I still murdered people on a whim for fun or profit but I believed in freedom.

[Calthropstu]

Any problem where at least one of those evil party members calculates that, in this case, the good of the party actually isn't in their best interest. That's the whole point. An Evil character cannot categorically put the good of the party first. There will always be an exception. There will always be reasons why, even for the most congenial Evil character, they would gladly betray their "friends." Because they don't actually value friendship for itself, nor literally anything else for itself. They can't, that's part of what makes Evil what it is. That's a pretty serious form of inflexibility, demanding that everything have fundamental instrumental, rather than intrinsic, value.


I never said Good was perfectly flexible. I'm saying that you are casting this as a dichotomy, with Evil absolutely, perfectly, 100% flexible (which is not true) and Good absolutely, perfectly, 0% flexible (which is also not true). Good has more flexibility than you give it credit for--admittedly, it is constrained, but are we not also told that "restriction breeds creativity"?


It can only value things instrumentally. Always. That's kind of a problem when instrumental value is thin on the ground, isn't it?

Beyond that, anything I would consider real Evil must be callous. It can't act with genuine altruism, mercy, or kindness--because those things are all behavior dependent on valuing other people as people, rather than as things. (Something Red Fel mentions: the vast majority of sapient beings are nobodies, things, to Lawful Evil.) You can show clemency (reduced punishment) or give benefits, but it must always be for an instrumental reason (indebting them to you, or securing a particular kind of reputation in order to enable future plans, etc.) Again, these are inflexibilities based on the inability to do anything for any non-instrumental reason.


A bovine fecal portion of the alignment system, sure. I excise these things because they're obviously stupid. If that's a problem, I'm sorry, but I'm not interested in playing a game where the rules are actively stupid.


I was less articulate than I should have been. Everyone "needs a reason," if all you mean by that is "well you do something rather than not doing something." I mean, for Evil characters, they cannot ever, for any reason, under any circumstance, do something for its intrinsic value. You step away from pure Evil every single time you actually value something, or someone, purely for itself, and not for how useful it is. (You don't, notably, specifically step toward Good when you do this; valuing things intrinsically is a necessary condition, but NOT a sufficient one, for becoming Good.)


Do you disagree that being Evil means only valuing things instrumentally? Do you disagree that it is possible to declare a character is "Evil" and yet fail to actually, y'now, be Evil? I'm not pulling a fallacy here. I'm relying on what I take Evil to mean--exclusively valuing things instrumentally, never intrinsically--to say that there are a lot of things people call "Evil" that...aren't.


Certainly not. They're Neutral. And Evil cannot put the party first unequivocally, whereas Good can, under the right circumstances. (It's not guaranteed.)


Again I apologize for being inarticulate. What I meant was: in my games, I absolutely won't allow any of the kinds of stories that allow Evil to behave as it naturally does, aka using and treating people as objects, as mere things. And even if I'm a player, I'm going to react extremely badly to those kinds of stories coming up. Therefore, an Evil character never gets any opportunity to do, or maybe even threaten to do, the kinds of things that allow them to retain the Evil alignment meaningfully. This means an Evil character would only get to express their alignment through actively resisting any effort to do things for their intrinsic value, and must therefore always be provided with instrumental reasons for every single adventure the party goes on. That beggars belief and strains group engagement--I cannot justify there always being a suitable reward, or reputation increase, or what-have-you. And then all of this is juxtaposed against "so....we're going up against some EXTREMELY powerful villains, who are actively recruiting and have already proven themselves capable of a lot of things, and would let me do Evil things without constantly resisting me. Why am I on Team Good again?"

And no, I don't think my limits are covered under a Gentleman's Agreement. Something to clarify here is, I actually feel morally wrong if I do literally anything wicked or wrong in, for example, CRPGs. I literally can't bring myself to do "dark side" or "genocide" routes or whatever, because doing so makes me feel wretched, guilty, sometimes even physically pained (the last only happened once when I was blindsided by a choice being INCREDIBLY evil when it sounded completely innocent, but still, it happened.) So any Gentleman's Agreement I'm going into is going to land really really far on the "absolutely no dirty business" side of things. I have been Team Dad in nearly every group I play in because of it. An Evil party member engaging in anything meaningfully Evil is going to be an enormous problem at my table, and even the threat of it is something to be used extremely cautiously (lying is, after all, not a great thing either--and if the person is serious, that's almost worse!)

I'm not a jerk or a moral policeman about it. I take extremely seriously the "Paladins with Class" article--real moral leadership means earning respect, not being rancorous or nasty. But there's at best an extremely narrow path for Evil to walk and be, y'know, at all worth the name, rather than being Neutral. Better to be honest with players and just tell them, "No, don't bother, I probably wouldn't let you do the things you wanted to do with it anyway." No yanking the player's chain or pretending the situation is different from what it is.


Nope. Friendship alone cannot ever be an Evil motive. Because Evil cannot value the friendship for itself. Red Fel even explicitly said this. Evil can only value the friendship for how useful it is. If something can be calculated to be more useful, Evil will gladly betray even the deepest friend, the closest confidant.


Is there more than one thing that can be Right, though? How sure are you that there is only one, common measuring stick for the Good-ness of an action?


I disagree. Again, I may be using the term "Evil" differently than you are. An Evil person exclusively values things instrumentally. Thus, an Evil person cannot do something solely for its intrinsic value. To do so would be to take an anti-Evil action, would be to violate what it *means* to be Evil.


Then we have an actually interesting situation, don't we? We have to really think, not merely calculate. We must judge values, not merely sum terms. That's what interests me--real moral thought, rather than simple utility-function estimation.


I entirely disagree. Unless you have more to it than fiat declaration, it doesn't seem we have much to discuss on that front.


Sure. Most player characters are not Good, and are probably Evil, regardless of what their character sheets say. They do not act with mercy or justice, they act with selfishness, callousness, and calculation. I see this as a flaw in most players' ability to make moral decisions, not in the concept of Good or the concept of Evil.


...howso? Because Evil exclusively values things instrumentally, it has no moral quandaries. There are no agonizing decisions. You calculate; it's that simple. And if the values are fuzzy or the future payoff uncertain, you make an arbitrary judgment call. That's it. There is no trying to reconcile incommensurate values, because you only have one ultimate value: power. Again, Red Fel explicitly said this. Good has at least the potential for incommensurate values, having to resolve seemingly unresolvable conflicts, or needing to forego one intrinsically desirable thing because it would cost too much of some other intrinsically desirable thing.

Specifically Lawful Evil adds a handful of variably applicable restrictions (adherence to Law), but the fundamental truth remains that Evil values power and basically nothing else. Red Fel even defined friendship as an exchange of power. If that exchange ceases to be the optimal distribution of one's power, or if a clearly superior exchange happens along (meaning it outweighs the losses due to betrayal, not just to losing the old friendship), Evil is not only not motivated to stay, it is actively motivated to break the old friendship and take the new deal. To do otherwise is to specifically act against Evil. Do that too often, and you aren't really Evil, are you?

I have a character running through the pf ap skulls and shackles. He was nominated the captain. He now has a fleet of 6 ships. He is viewed with admiration and respect. He captures entire ships and all surviving crew join his crew willingly quite often. If they don't join, they are dropped off in the next port.

He rescues crew members with levitate. He has earned the respect of every crew member by capturing 27 ships without a single casualty in his crew. Only one crew member has ever died and that was to a sahaugin ambush.

And yet, there is no doubt in the gm's mind that he is Evil with a capital E.

How is he evil? Well, he keeps a psychopath as a friend by regularly giving him slaves for torture and murder. After taking a slave ship filled with hundreds of slaves, he threatened a small group of women that he would drop the whole lot of slaves off in port peril unless one of them stayed on and became the ship's prostitute. He suggested genocide against baby sahaugin.

He is fully capable of functioning in a good party. He even performs many good acts. But he is still evil because he sees nothing wrong with hurting people who aren't part of his circle.

[Quertus]

@ezekielraiden - most of your argument boils down to the fact that you have a homebrew definition of Evil that you use in your games. While your definition may make much more sense than the travesty that is D&D alignment, it is still a deviation from the "common tongue" of RAW, and thus probably only relevant to the extent that "because homebrew" (or, less generously, "because GMs want to call everything that they don't like 'Evil' (which there's probably some cool psychology term for)") is an answer to the question of "why ban evil?".


For me, it's purely about what I believe in and what I enjoy.

I am willing to spend hours preparing a world and a scenario so my friends can pretend to be heroic.

I am not willing to spend hours preparing a world and a scenario so my friends can pretend to be villainous.

That's… either a very good reason, or a misunderstanding of 3e's definition of Evil. I'm not sure which.

But, yeah, if you genuinely don't enjoy playing with PCs who are willing to cast Animate Dead to save the village, or Protection from Good to remove possession/domination, then, yeah, that might be the best reason I've heard thus far this thread.


Is there more than one thing that can be Right, though? How sure are you that there is only one, common measuring stick for the Good-ness of an action?

So, this bit fits with RAW good/evil, and is a good question.

Hmmm… I suppose my point is that I'm not sure that there is only one "good". My point is, how long can a good character continue to be good (and/or believe that they are good) when, by their own moral judgement, they are not "doing the right thing"?


Having friends and valuing them is not anti evil. You can love some people, be a great parent, have a ton a friend's that you treat well with no immediate value to you, and still murder your business rival that moves into town for personal gain. You know, to protect your livelihood and your ability to care for your family. You are just willing to take the most direct and effective route when opportunity presents itself, but you are not required to kick every puppy along the way.

Make a complete character with hopes, dreams, goals, family and friends. They can still be evil, be believable and be great.

That's what I'm talking about - an evil character, not a caricature of evil.

[Conradine]

And no, I don't think my limits are covered under a Gentleman's Agreement. Something to clarify here is, I actually feel morally wrong if I do literally anything wicked or wrong in, for example, CRPGs. I literally can't bring myself to do "dark side" or "genocide" routes or whatever, because doing so makes me feel wretched, guilty, sometimes even physically pained (the last only happened once when I was blindsided by a choice being INCREDIBLY evil when it sounded completely innocent, but still, it happened.) So any Gentleman's Agreement I'm going into is going to land really really far on the "absolutely no dirty business" side of things. I have been Team Dad in nearly every group I play in because of it. An Evil party member engaging in anything meaningfully Evil is going to be an enormous problem at my table, and even the threat of it is something to be used extremely cautiously (lying is, after all, not a great thing either--and if the person is serious, that's almost worse!)


It's just a game. An exercise of fantasy. It's not a bad or immoral thing to play a character who does bad things.

[LordBlades]

It's just a game. An exercise of fantasy. It's not a bad or immoral thing to play a character who does bad things.

Yet, everybody has their own set of limits when it comes to fantasy. Some things they like doing, others they don't.

IMO, it's nothing wrong to simply not feel comfortable with pretending to be evil.

[icefractal]

The issue I have with "evil is more flexible because they can always put the party first" is that, IMO, "characters must put party loyalty above everything else" is a hell of a lot more restrictive than "characters need to have a generally compatible ethos".

More generally, in a non-PvP game - and there are various reasons the group may prefer that - every PC reflects on the rest. Make a cannibal? You're effectively appending "and is fairly ok with cannibalism" to everyone else's character. Subterfuge only goes so far - at a certain point you're effectively adding "and is a gullible acconplice" instead.

Those kind of collaborative modifications aren't inherently a bad thing, but it's something that's not unreasonable to refuse either.

And obviously this doesn't just go for evil. If the rest of the group wants to be a criminal gang building a rep by fear, trying to stick in a Paladin with "just do the evil behind my back" probably doesn't fly.

[Themrys]

I'm actually thinking about playing an neutral evil bard in the future. If my GM allows it. She is not interested in doing honest work. Why work hard if you can seduce men into buying you gift.
Hopping from sugar daddy to sugar daddy. Promising them her body etc but each time they get close she disappears and if she gets the chance she will take a fair chunk of their money as well.

This sounds like a specific character from the Kingkiller Chronicles who is probably true neutral.

Ordinary D&D heroes kill people who kill innocents.

Your "evil" bard would financially exploit men who want to (and likely regularly do, unless by "seduce" you mean mind control spells) sexually exploit women. How is that more evil than killing people who kill?

Not very evil, and also not very interesting.

But a good illustration of why it makes sense to ban evil characters: The kind of person who wants to write "evil" on their character sheet tends to want to play in a disruptive way, or, as it turns out push their favourite misogynistic stereotype on everyone else by playing an "evil" woman.


I don't DM, and the game I prefer to play doesn't have an alignment system, but has character types that tend to act in evil ways.

There's a place in an adventuring party for a character who is just a tad bit more ruthless than anyone else, (think Vaarsuvius) but most people playing an interestingly ruthless character would probably not describe that character as evil, but as a person who due to their history has developed a habit of making morally questionable decisions. Vaarsuvius may or may not be objectively, detectably evil after casting the familicide spell, but still is - and always was - a cooperative team member and has an intriguing character development.

Likely the only kind of acceptable (as in, playable in a good party and not annoying) evil character whose player would actually wish to write "evil" on the character sheet is the stylishly gloomy necromancer who uses evil magic, but otherwise acts like any other adventurer.

Like many others, I simply wouldn't enjoy DMing for an evil party, unless perhaps it was amusing, over-the-top cheesy Disney villain evilness.

[LordBlades]

Likely the only kind of acceptable (as in, playable in a good party and not annoying) evil character whose player would actually wish to write "evil" on the character sheet is the stylishly gloomy necromancer who uses evil magic, but otherwise acts like any other adventurer.


IMO there are quite a few more more types of more-or-less Evil characters that can be acceptable in a Good/Neutral party and even provide interesting character development for themselves and for the party as a whole. From my personal experience:

- The 'just business' guy. An honorable LE guy without any great villainous ambitions, that, for some reasons has a common goal with the party. He may be a ruthless mercenary paid by the same employer to accompany the party or somebody with a personal feud with the BBEG. He tags along, completes the adventure/arc/campaign with the party and then goes on his way, because he has no reason to harm the party, and your typical party has no reason to harm him.

- The reluctant servant. An Evil character that, through some relationship (family, an oath, Wookie life debt etc.) is forced to accompany the party. He's pretty much on a leash, he knows it and he's not happy, but doesn't really have a choice. It requires the cooperation of at least another player to hold the leash, but, when done properly it can lead to some pretty memorable RP moments.

- The schemer. An Evil character who wants to gain the trust of the party, use them and then betray them. Now, unless everybody agrees during Session 0 that PvP and betrayal is part of the game, backstabbing your party is a big 'no' in my book and might lead to some severely hurt feelings. The way you can play this kind of character in most parties is by setting yourself up to fail. You scheme, try to steer the party your way, succeed sometimes and fail sometimes, but, before the moment comes to pull your great reveal, you just don't. You either die (heroically or not), have a change of heart etc.

[patchyman]

Here, however, I'm absolutely with PhoenixPhyre. That is on the supposedly good characters; they are condoning torture, and while I might not make the Paladin fall for that, it would only be because the first offense is a warning, and they would be receiving divine insight to the effect that they need to shape the hell up. As a player of an evil character, you are well within the bounds of common sense to expect a Paladin to put a stop to a suggestion like that before you have to follow through on it.

I agree with PhoenixPhyre as well. I was just sharing a counterexample to the original poster’s statement that you can play an Evil alignment if you are willing to back off to maintain party harmony. I.e. this assumes that your party will intervene to keep you from acting in an Evil manner.

[patchyman]

I suppose one could play a faithful albeit evil servant of one of the good players. Perhaps they inherited you or something like that. This would work best with LE, I think. A monk/assassin, perhaps, who mainly serves as a butler because the good master doesn’t know what else to do with this guy..

Funnily enough, that was exactly the character in the game I played mentioned upthread. I specifically chose that background because it gave my character an excuse to let the group’s Good choices overrule my character’s Evil instincts.

It did not work as planned. The other characters did not prevent mine from acting Evil. On the contrary, in my opinion, my character’s pragmatism prevented the party from engaging in more questionable behaviour.

[patchyman]

Anyhow...
it's not only the Evil character who must act reasonable. Also the party should try to be accommodating. ( here, I'm thinking about my very first party and DM, who were not accommodating or reasonable at all )

An Evil mercenary can join a good party for a reasonable fee, abstain from evil behiavour and act professional but you must pay him as agreed.

IMO the problem is not inherently about evil characters but about behaving as reasonable adults in real life. Everything can be solved, then. And nothing works if you deal with unreasonable people, instead.

True, but by that measure, it’s not unreasonable to say “No Evil Characters”.

[ezekielraiden]

From the quote:
An assertion that sounds a hell of a lot more like an informed attribute than an actual description to me. I mean, I already said that I think a lot of (old-school, to be clear) D&D characters--murderhobo types--should really be Evil, regardless of what their character sheets say. Same thing goes here. Their character sheets might say "Evil," but their behavior sounds an awful lot more like "ruthless Neutral."


I interpret "Value something like friendship" from BoVD as

"Value something good, such as friendship"

"Even evil characters can value such a generally good (lowercase G) thing as friendship"
Then I would chuck this into the same bin as the rest of the "they wrote a system that is self-contradictory, and self-contradiction is always to be avoided." With self-contradiction, we have three options: accept it (and thus suffer from uselessness, via the Principle of Explosion), reject the entire structure and start over, or reject only some part of the structure while keeping the rest. (Having a contradiction means you're allowed to jettison *any* premise upon which that contradiction materially depends, so it's up to you which one you pick--but only one per contradiction.) Since I don't want a moral system that permits proving literally anything, and I don't have any interest in throwing all of it out and starting over, eliminating the contradictory elements until I have something consistent is the only viable means left to me.


Another is to be the kind of person who generally does not commit either Evil or Good - is fundamentally hostile to both. Someone who never helps anybody without the expectation of reward - and outright despises altruism- but would never consider robbing the innocent either, even to save their own life - and outright despises "looters" of any kind.
Let's leave real philosophers out of the discussion. All I can say on this front is that you seem to be talking about exactly what I analogized--"anti-Good" but not actually Evil acts, and "anti-Evil" but not actually Good acts. That is, an anti-Evil act isn't Good, doesn't make you Good, it just makes you less Evil, erases a little bit of the Evil in you, and vice-versa for anti-Good acts. One can argue that there are no such acts--that every act either has no effect on your alignment position, or it always moves you closer to Evil (wherever you were to begin with) or moves you closer to Good (ditto). But to merely assume that there are no such acts seems an error. E.g. pointedly refusing to donate to the needy, even when one easily has the capacity to do so? I would call that an anti-Good act. It can't make you Evil (otherwise we'd be saying that any form of self-interest is Evil and I won't do that.) But it does mean you're moving away from full Good-ness. Likewise, I argue having a true, genuine friend, to whom you remain faithful in defiance of logic and reason, sounds like an anti-Evil act. It can't make you Good, but it does move you away from Evil. "Anti-[Alignment]" actions push you toward Neutrality.


See above re: the line. You're Neutral until you're not, but it's not like crossing that line suddenly makes you just as evil as a Balor or something. The guy above might have been Lawful Neutral until his cruelty crossed the line too often for whatever metaphysical forces govern the energies of good and evil in D&D, but that doesn't suddenly eradicate his love of his family or his friendship with Bob or mean he starts kicking his dog instead of petting it. He might be on the road to all of those chings changing if what he views as necessary cruelty comes to be something he enjoys, etc, but it's not as if tagging him with evil means he must be evil in all ways and value nothing outside of cold calculations.
Certainly. But there is a difference between "only valuing things instrumentally" and "puppy-kicking evil." A huge one, actually; the former is far, far more dangerous than the latter, which is rarely able to do much of anything beyond petty crime. It's even possible for someone to value everything, even people, purely instrumentally and yet be seen as an upstanding and righteous member of the community. Craftsmen that abuse their tools are fools--but that doesn't mean any but the rarest few feel anything even approaching Love for those tools. Likewise with intelligent, effective Evil. Hence why I keep referencing calculation. An Evil person will betray a friend, if the exchange appears to be worth it--but betraying a friend is an enormous cost, so the reward will have to be above and beyond that. Consider Emperor Palpatine tempting Luke to the Dark Side; he was quite willing to betray Vader and acquire Luke as a replacement, because it would be an unequivocal win for him. But in the vast majority of cases, losing Vader would be an objectively bad deal, so he would turn down any such thing.

That's the issue with Evil. It's the difference between loyalty earned and loyalty bought. Good's loyalty is earned, and may later be spent. Evil's loyalty is bought, or perhaps better phrased it is leased, and that lease always has the risk of revocation. Lawful Evil is more playable than the other Evil alignments, mostly because an LE character's dedication to Law allows one to temper or restrain their Evil behavior...but there's only so far you can go with that if they're actually serious about being Lawful Evil, and not just Lawful Willing-to-get-its-hands-dirty.


Frankly I think most PCs would be Neutral regardless of what's on their sheets, because as has been noted, a lot of what common adventures cause you to be involved in is often pretty ambiguous at best when you get down to the nitty gritty details of what you're doing.
Good point. To amend my statement: ultra-OSR "Gygaxian" characters, the ones who backstab and betray at the drop of a hat. Even the Paladins. It's...among the problems I have with that particular style.


I do agree that evil should have lines it can't cross, just like good does, but I think it's probably more complicated than that. The stories that inspire the genre are full of heroes or regular people who fall to evil and then go on to blah blah blah, while most of our stories of redemption from evil to good or... well, just not evil, tend to be end-of-life stuff. Sacrificing yourself in a purely altruistic act of love, that sort of thing. There's not usually a ton of "Well, Todd used to torture children with acid and poison but now he's running a homeless shelter and mentoring disabled toddlers with a heart of gold." stories, though I've seen a few.
I think Zuko presents us with a good example of redemption. We also see a handful of others, though I admit it's uncommon. Jason Blood (the demon-bound hero in DC) is a good example of someone who's on an almost Sisyphean quest for redemption, and I think it makes his character pretty compelling. The opportunity to tell such stories in D&D, when they have been criminally underserved elsewhere, is a boon.


No one is 100% rational all time. Evil characters have emotions and istincts like everyone else.
Certainly not; but what I said doesn't require that. You can make mistakes in your calculations of instrumental value. Lots of characters do--it's a humanizing element. My point remains: if these characters know that they have every reason to betray each other, that logically it would benefit them more than it would cost them, but they choose not to do so, in cognizant defiance of logic, they are being less Evil. Significantly, I'd argue. Maybe not quite enough to make them not-Evil, but it's a very serious break specifically because they know exactly what they're doing and choose to do it anyway. (Just like how killing an innocent man, whom you have every reason to believe is not innocent, is a less evil action than killing someone you DEFINITELY know is innocent.)


Agreed, also thats just Neutral Evil. Lawful evil can believe in non-instrumental things like honor and honesty and Chaotic Evil beings can believe in things like freedom. I have played a Chaotic Evil character who was more opposed to slavery than the Neutral and Good characters in the party. (Not that they were for it, but my character was 100% against it and nearly got us all killed freeing the slaves.) I still murdered people on a whim for fun or profit but I believed in freedom.
Right. But those things are always limits and restrictions on their ability to follow the unadulterated goals of Evil. Particularly Lawful Evil, since it can be hamstrung into having to keep a promise even though it's a clear disadvantage. Navigating the line between those things is--or at least should be--just as difficult as a Paladin navigating the line between Good and Law, respecting authority structures while defying their excesses and addressing their flaws.


I have a character running through the pf ap skulls and shackles.<snip> He is fully capable of functioning in a good party. He even performs many good acts. But he is still evil because he sees nothing wrong with hurting people who aren't part of his circle.
Er...I'm not really seeing how he does. He prioritizes capturing over killing--so that he can bolster his ranks, which is a clearly instrumentalist reason to avoid killing. He has no problems with killing in general, only avoiding it when it would be wasteful. He encourages, or at least actively supports, cruelty in his associates purely to maintain connections with them, proving that he has no regard for the value of life in itself. He sees to the safety and well-being of his crew because they are necessary for his goals. I'm not seeing a single aspect of him that is meaningfully Good. Have I missed something?


@ezekielraiden - most of your argument boils down to the fact that you have a homebrew definition of Evil that you use in your games. While your definition may make much more sense than the travesty that is D&D alignment, it is still a deviation from the "common tongue" of RAW, and thus probably only relevant to the extent that "because homebrew" (or, less generously, "because GMs want to call everything that they don't like 'Evil' (which there's probably some cool psychology term for)") is an answer to the question of "why ban evil?".
All fair. The thread doesn't explicitly say RAW, though it does look like most people assume it. See above for my defense of why I do this; in short, I see no point in having a system that self-contradicts, so I make only what corrections appear necessary to make it stop contradicting itself.


That's… either a very good reason, or a misunderstanding of 3e's definition of Evil. I'm not sure which.

But, yeah, if you genuinely don't enjoy playing with PCs who are willing to cast Animate Dead to save the village, or Protection from Good to remove possession/domination, then, yeah, that might be the best reason I've heard thus far this thread.
Those particular spells might not necessarily be on my list, but certainly spells like avasculate are off the table for me. I don't want to run for, or play with, people who use torturous or wicked methods. (Of course, as far as I'm concerned, creating undead--mindless or sapient--is, unless explicitly said otherwise, an incredibly horrible thing, as it traps and twists the soul of whomever it's used on, making them into a mockery of who and what they were without their permission or ability to consent. So yeah. Creating undead is Pretty Evil in my book.)


So, this bit fits with RAW good/evil, and is a good question.

Hmmm… I suppose my point is that I'm not sure that there is only one "good". My point is, how long can a good character continue to be good (and/or believe that they are good) when, by their own moral judgement, they are not "doing the right thing"?
Ideally, they should never do anything they aren't sure is right. In practice, it more frequently cashes out as never doing anything they are sure isn't right. It's sort of a modal logic thing--the location of the negative significantly changes the meaning of the statement. (It's the difference between avoiding actions that might not be permitted, and avoiding actions you know you're obligated not to do.) The ideal is extremely difficult to live up to in practice, while the latter is merely bare minimum competence. Someone who never puts in more effort than just avoiding the things you're obligated not to do is most likely Neutral, not Evil. I think Roy's conversation with the deva (particularly the 2nd half of this page (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0490.html)--"You're trying."--and the top-right panel of this page (http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0491.html)) articulates more or less my position here. You try, and you do what you think is best, to the limit of your abilities--including your ability to judge what is best. It's hard, and you'll probably fall short in a lot of ways. That alone shouldn't be a barrier.


That's what I'm talking about - an evil character, not a caricature of evil.
I honestly don't think I'm talking about a caricature. Treating people as things is Evil. Doing it a little, in low-impact situations, may not be a problem. But if you're going to actually be Evil, as opposed to simply dark Neutral, I will expect that your primary--and in the end "ultimate"--perspective will be that people are things, even the ones you really, really like. Because something like unconditional love is incompatible with Evil. "Love" as in infatuation and enjoyment-of-another's-company are quite easily translated into instrumental values: my lover excites my passions, allows me to engage in intelligent conversation with others, etc. That's "caring for" a person in the way one would care for a nice pair of shellacked loafers, or a nice car; they're pleasant and provide a useful, comfortable, beneficial function. To drift from this in important, knowing ways is to drift away from Evil. To ultimately decide that no, others truly have intrinsic value, not for what they do for you or how they affect you but merely because they exist at all is to defect away from Evil. Not necessarily to Good--that requires actively valuing people as ends in themselves--but certainly away from Evil (and thus at least into Neutrality).


It's just a game. An exercise of fantasy. It's not a bad or immoral thing to play a character who does bad things.
I appreciate the effort, Conradine, but this doesn't help. I already know this is true. As a fellow player once said: If the problem could be solved by logic, it wouldn't be a problem in the first place.

[Efrate]

BoED has a pair of demons iirc, physical embodiments of both chaos and evil, in love raising a child. They are not in any way good , 100% evil, but they are in love and love their child.

Love is totally within the wheelhouse of evil. Actual true love, not just liking someone because they please you.

Evil can do and feel literally EVERYTHING that good can and still be evil. I can rescue orphans, save the village, and everything else, and still go home and torture my slaves for pleasure. Full consistency is not required, inconsistency is what makes someone human and come to life. Even inevitables and modrons have variations, not as much as others but it exists.

You seem to be describing one dimensional concepts with definitions, and characters who are that way are caricatures. Fine for an npc who has a few minutes of screentimes at best, but for an actual character you play, I would hope your characters have more complexities than that.

But if thats what you and your group likes you do you it's your game.

[hamishspence]

BoED has a pair of demons iirc, physical embodiments of both chaos and evil, in love raising a child. They are not in any way good , 100% evil, but they are in love and love their child.

Love is totally within the wheelhouse of evil. Actual true love, not just liking someone because they please you.

Evil can do and feel literally EVERYTHING that good can and still be evil. I can rescue orphans, save the village, and everything else, and still go home and torture my slaves for pleasure. Full consistency is not required, inconsistency is what makes someone human and come to life.

Indeed. It isn't just one D&D splatbook that supports this idea - it's multiple ones.

BoVD, Savage Species, Champions of Ruin, Exemplars of Evil - all support this picture of Evil characters not having to be calculatingly selfish, or incapable of genuine altruism.


there's only so far you can go with that if they're actually serious about being Lawful Evil, and not just Lawful Willing-to-get-its-hands-dirty.

A soul sufficiently dirtied by Evil acts, is an Evil soul, regardless of how "unwilling to treat Innocent People as Things" the character is. That's how Evil in D&D works - it taints things. It can taint an environment (BoVD) - so it can certainly taint a soul.

D&D Morality is based as much on what one does, as what one is willing to do.

If one has done tons of Evil acts to the "Not Innocent" (and has never tried to repent or atone) - the fact that one is unwilling to harm the Innocent - becomes irrelevant.


Agreed, also thats just Neutral Evil. Lawful evil can believe in non-instrumental things like honor and honesty and Chaotic Evil beings can believe in things like freedom.

And Neutral Evil druids can believe in things like Nature.

Just as "LE but closer to corrupted LG than to pure LE" might go to considerable self-sacrificing lengths to protect the innocent but tortures the guilty routinely and regularly -

so you could have a "NE, corrupted NG" druid who goes to self-sacrificing lengths to protect Nature - but who tortures those they see as harming Nature.

[Quertus]

All fair. The thread doesn't explicitly say RAW, though it does look like most people assume it. See above for my defense of why I do this; in short, I see no point in having a system that self-contradicts, so I make only what corrections appear necessary to make it stop contradicting itself.

RAW is a Playground convention. But it's an acquired template.

Near as I can follow you (reading comprehension is not my strong suit), it feels like this whole "evil view things instrumentally" is something you added whole cloth, rather than having grounding in (or even being a logical extension of) RAW. Your argument doesn't feel like, "I removed the contradiction(s) from RAW", so much as "I created something new to replace RAW".

By all means, provide citations if I'm wrong, and raw actually supports your position, as opposed to it standing on its own foundation.


Those particular spells might not necessarily be on my list, but certainly spells like avasculate are off the table for me. I don't want to run for, or play with, people who use torturous or wicked methods. (Of course, as far as I'm concerned, creating undead--mindless or sapient--is, unless explicitly said otherwise, an incredibly horrible thing, as it traps and twists the soul of whomever it's used on, making them into a mockery of who and what they were without their permission or ability to consent. So yeah. Creating undead is Pretty Evil in my book.)

If you don't want to play with people who torture, say that. Don't throw the baby out with the bath water - explain what you actually have problems with, rather than dismissing Evil carte blanche.

As GM, you are the eyes and ears of the character. Their ability to make meaningful decisions, their agency, is predicated upon your ability to explain what they perceive and understand. If you cannot explain your dislike of torture better than "no evil", it speaks poorly of your ability to perform one of the primary responsibilities of a GM.

(So, yeah, when a GM says "no evil", what I hear is "I am not good at communicating", often as not)

Oh, and Animate Dead? In earlier editions, you might be right (although people absolutely can give permission to be animated, and by Kantian ethics, those who attack my Necromancer can be argued to have in principle consented to be animated). But there's nothing in 3e (afaict) that says that Animate Dead does anything to the soul (or even that it wouldn't work on a soulless life form's corpse).


Ideally, they should never do anything they aren't sure is right. In practice, it more frequently cashes out as never doing anything they are sure isn't right. It's sort of a modal logic thing--the location of the negative significantly changes the meaning of the statement. (It's the difference between avoiding actions that might not be permitted, and avoiding actions you know you're obligated not to do.) The ideal is extremely difficult to live up to in practice, while the latter is merely bare minimum competence. Someone who never puts in more effort than just avoiding the things you're obligated not to do is most likely Neutral, not Evil. I think Roy's conversation with the deva (particularly the 2nd half of this page--"You're trying."--and the top-right panel of this page) articulates more or less my position here. You try, and you do what you think is best, to the limit of your abilities--including your ability to judge what is best. It's hard, and you'll probably fall short in a lot of ways. That alone shouldn't be a barrier.

So, fine. The party wants to do A, but one character is sure A isn't right. Although, that character is only human (or elven, dwarven, whatever), and therefore an idiot, who may be wrong, even when they're "sure".

If they're Good, they cannot just go along with the party, right? Whereas my Evil has no such qualms.


I honestly don't think I'm talking about a caricature. Treating people as things is Evil. Doing it a little, in low-impact situations, may not be a problem. But if you're going to actually be Evil, as opposed to simply dark Neutral, I will expect that your primary--and in the end "ultimate"--perspective will be that people are things, even the ones you really, really like. Because something like unconditional love is incompatible with Evil. "Love" as in infatuation and enjoyment-of-another's-company are quite easily translated into instrumental values: my lover excites my passions, allows me to engage in intelligent conversation with others, etc. That's "caring for" a person in the way one would care for a nice pair of shellacked loafers, or a nice car; they're pleasant and provide a useful, comfortable, beneficial function. To drift from this in important, knowing ways is to drift away from Evil. To ultimately decide that no, others truly have intrinsic value, not for what they do for you or how they affect you but merely because they exist at all is to defect away from Evil. Not necessarily to Good--that requires actively valuing people as ends in themselves--but certainly away from Evil (and thus at least into Neutrality).

… in my observations of humanity, a) the vast majority of humanity sickens me with their incessant, petty evil; b) very few humans really "love". I would argue that over 90% of humanity is Evil (by some definition, arguably yours). But - maybe incorrectly - I don't believe that they view life and relationships as the simple calculus that you describe.

Now, maybe I'm naive, maybe humanity really is as Evil as you describe. But I hold that one can get those same Evil symptoms through alternate underlying structures. I roleplay to experiment with such structures, to try to understand the baffling species that surrounds me.

I have created many successful characters, who model various aspects of humanity's Evil, their foibles and failings, without having to resort to full-blown dehumanization.

Granted, it really helps to dehumanize the monsters you're slaughtering by the truckload (and I'm sure that there's some psychological principle that, were it anthropomorphized, would respond, "well, duh!"). But one can go pretty far down the evil rabbit hole without resorting to such all-encompassing dehumanization as you describe.

[hamishspence]

My view is that, when it comes to alignment it is not the DM's job to tell the player how their character thinks - it is only the DM's job to track the character's alignment.

And once a character's reached Evil thorough doing Evil deeds - they are not getting out of it without repentance. But the character can still think like a Good person - believing in altruism as a Good Thing, and trying to be altruistic, if the player wants them to.

[Conradine]

Talking about torture...

I'm reading the Way of the Wicked modules and I'm quite disappointed to find many allegedly "good" character who routinely burn alive heretics and even use torture to extract confessions.
Ok, their target is the worst of the worst ( asmodeans ) but still they're using evil means to their end.

[hamishspence]

Unless Way of the Wicked is 3.5, it may be rules-legit, depending on the actual edition. Is it Pathfinder?

[Calthropstu]

Unless Way of the Wicked is 3.5, it may be rules-legit, depending on the actual edition. Is it Pathfinder?

Yes, it is pf. Using torture was utilized by numerous so called "good" entities in the real world, so precedent exists. Going further into that lpoint starts getting into banned topics however.

[Quertus]

Unless Way of the Wicked is 3.5, it may be rules-legit, depending on the actual edition. Is it Pathfinder?

So… torture is [evil] in 3e, but not in PF?

[hamishspence]

So… torture is [evil] in 3e, but not in PF?


Pathfinder is much vaguer about "what constitutes an Evil act" or "what is inappropriate behaviour for a Good character".

http://www.d20pfsrd.com/alignment-description/additional-rules/


One of the many quandaries good-aligned characters face during their adventuring careers is what to do about the progeny of evil humanoids. For example, shortly into their adventures, an adventuring party encounters a group of goblins who have been raiding a village, leaving a swath of death and destruction in their wake. The PCs track them to some caves and kill them—but the dead goblins leave behind babies. What should the PCs do with those? Kill them? Leave them be? What is the best and most appropriate thing for a good character to do in this situation? Just as there are varying good alignments, there are different solutions to this problem. One good character might believe the children are not inherently evil, that their behavior is learned, and round up the young ones to take them to a higher power like a church, a monastery, or an orphanage set up to deal with the issue of raising humanoid children. Alternatively, he might decide to raise them himself! This could be viewed as the most saintly thing to do. Another character might decide not to do anything, leaving the children to the whims of nature—either the children will survive in the wild on their own, or they will not. Lastly, a good character who believes the younglings can never overcome their innate evil might kill them all outright, viewing the action as good, just, and the most merciful option.



If slaughtering baby goblins is "not inappropriate for a Good character" in Pathfinder, then it follows that very little is.

[Efrate]

Rise of the Runelords AP in pathfinder actually has this come up. It is presented as optional but since the AP has you track character sins it is left to a gm to use if they want. If it is it is or is not evil to kill them, or more evil to leave them trapped in their cages (which in pf is how goblins keep their young because they are violent and destructive upon birth), or to free them and let nature work.

There is also a NG box ranger who keeps trophies of goblins he has killed (including one taxidermied one) and pays for their ears.

[Conradine]

About evil characters and love / friendship.

There is also emotional egoism in play. A character who loves his father and is ready to sacrifice a whole village of innocents is acting Evil, but there's no doubt he loves his dad.

Or friendship / camaraderie / tribalism: turning a blind eye over your friend's misdeeds is evil, yet is a very common and accepted - sometimes even expected - behiavour.

[PoeticallyPsyco]

An assertion that sounds a hell of a lot more like an informed attribute than an actual description to me. I mean, I already said that I think a lot of (old-school, to be clear) D&D characters--murderhobo types--should really be Evil, regardless of what their character sheets say. Same thing goes here. Their character sheets might say "Evil," but their behavior sounds an awful lot more like "ruthless Neutral."


Then I would chuck this [RAW that Evil is not mutually exclusive with friendship and similar] into the same bin as the rest of the "they wrote a system that is self-contradictory, and self-contradiction is always to be avoided." With self-contradiction, we have three options: accept it (and thus suffer from uselessness, via the Principle of Explosion), reject the entire structure and start over, or reject only some part of the structure while keeping the rest. (Having a contradiction means you're allowed to jettison *any* premise upon which that contradiction materially depends, so it's up to you which one you pick--but only one per contradiction.) Since I don't want a moral system that permits proving literally anything, and I don't have any interest in throwing all of it out and starting over, eliminating the contradictory elements until I have something consistent is the only viable means left to me.

It seems to me that the contradiction is not with the text, but with your definition of evil. You claim that viewing people as mere instruments is Evil, and for the most part I'm inclined to agree; certainly, it's a valid stance to take. However, you seem to be operating under the paradigm that Evil is viewing people instrumentally, that the two are inseparable and interchangeable, and thus that any departure from viewing people as instruments is also a departure from Evil (ignoring for a moment 'puppy kicking' Stupid Evil, which you mention but dismiss as lesser to viewing people instrumentally). You then disregard RAW that contradicts with your definition; it seems to me that if RAW consistently disagrees with your definition, it is the definition that is the easiest thing to drop to avoid self-contradiction.

Further, your argument assumes that the end goal of all this instrumentalization is the personal power of the villain, but that's ignoring a lot of villainous motivations, even if viewing people instrumentally is the definition of evil. Friendship and loyalty are often redeeming qualities, it's true, but they can just as easily be villainous motivators. The mob boss who commits horrible crimes, claws their way to the top of the organization, and imposes their reign on all around them in order to pay for their sister to have a better life. The loyal servant (whether of a master or a cause) who commits unspeakable acts to support the recipient of their loyalty. Or even friendship:


“I don’t think you quite understand. I love Amadeus, you see,” Warlock admitted casually. “He is my oldest and dearest friend, a brother in all but blood. I don’t care one whit for the Empire or Evil or all those carefully laid plans everybody seems to be following. So you can believe me when I say that if your knife finds his back, I will not kill you.”

He leaned forward.

“What I will do is rip your soul out of that mangled husk you call a body, then cast it into the Void so you can continue screaming in unspeakable agony until Creation itself falls apart,” he hissed.

Now you could argue that these, too, are redeeming qualities, reducing the Evil of the villain. So let's return to 'puppy kicking' evil; evil that does evil for the fun of it. I don't think it can be argued that committing villainous acts for personal pleasure is any less evil than committing those same acts for personal power (the Chaotic Evil to your definition's Lawful Evil, if you will). And such a character is not really subject to most of the temptations you listed. Betray their allies for a stable and profitable position in a greater villains organization? Abandon their friends for sufficient profit?


"Why would I do something so stupid? First of all, that's a strict demotion from equal party member to subordinate; I have no interest in being subject to more restrictions on my behavior due to someone else's whims. Secondly, while it's true that in your organization, I'd have free reign to carve up as many people as I want, doing so would require abandoning my friends, which would bring me no pleasure, and I could have all the same fun shredding your evil army on my way to slice you into thin ribbons and drink your screams. And then I could return home and be lauded as a hero, my every whim waited on by adoring fans, until the next time I get bored and rally my gang of actually trustworthy friends for another quest."

Adventuring is fun - that's why we play the game in the first place - and no villain (or other temptation) is going to be able to provide an alternative that is as fun in the long term while providing the same degree of freedom offered by being a villain with good publicity (with a group of trustworthy heroes who can be counted on to watch their back, no less). All these things you decry as "anti-evil" (friendship and love, for example) are merely extensions of a villainous hedonist's motivation, so being unwilling to sacrifice them isn't even a reduction in instrumentality.

TL;DR I think your definition of evil as purely instrumentalist is overly narrow and flawed, and even within the definition it's possible to create pure evil characters who wouldn't fall into the pitfalls you listed.

[AnimeAnarchist]

This sounds like a specific character from the Kingkiller Chronicles who is probably true neutral.

Ordinary D&D heroes kill people who kill innocents.

Your "evil" bard would financially exploit men who want to (and likely regularly do, unless by "seduce" you mean mind control spells) sexually exploit women. How is that more evil than killing people who kill?

Not very evil, and also not very interesting.

But a good illustration of why it makes sense to ban evil characters: The kind of person who wants to write "evil" on their character sheet tends to want to play in a disruptive way, or, as it turns out push their favourite misogynistic stereotype on everyone else by playing an "evil" woman.


I don't DM, and the game I prefer to play doesn't have an alignment system, but has character types that tend to act in evil ways.

There's a place in an adventuring party for a character who is just a tad bit more ruthless than anyone else, (think Vaarsuvius) but most people playing an interestingly ruthless character would probably not describe that character as evil, but as a person who due to their history has developed a habit of making morally questionable decisions. Vaarsuvius may or may not be objectively, detectably evil after casting the familicide spell, but still is - and always was - a cooperative team member and has an intriguing character development.

Likely the only kind of acceptable (as in, playable in a good party and not annoying) evil character whose player would actually wish to write "evil" on the character sheet is the stylishly gloomy necromancer who uses evil magic, but otherwise acts like any other adventurer.

Like many others, I simply wouldn't enjoy DMing for an evil party, unless perhaps it was amusing, over-the-top cheesy Disney villain evilness.

I am readonly person usually in such comunities, but your sentence hooked me to answer. I have quarter drow female moon elf character LE rogue/sorcerer/dragon disciple/blackguard of Loviatar/abjurant champion, something like princess of former Illianbruen in Neverwinter forest, that was rised by church of Loviatar and trained in Braegan D'erthe. She is capabale leader and pretty good friend and lover for her allies, but she can kill, robe, torture, poison, steal from every non friend, but she dont broke her woves or kill noncombatant child or elder if it can be avoided. Now she is lady in Lords Allience and in good terms with Kelben Arunsun and Tel Kiira, because we have LE exemplars in both organizations from city of splendors and Volo's guide of the north and she does her work like refounding Illianbruen, destroy sarukh's plot and relationships pretty well. But in same time she has bugbear tribe on her bent, trade relationships with Ched Nasad and she continue to execute missions of Bregan D'Aerthe to establish drow influenced surface port (In Luskan, which she plans to conquer by force) and missions of church of Loviatar like taking control of Scullport Loviatar's church or securing maiden's hand temple from morueme clan. She is valuable force for Lord's Allience and its near oposite forces because she dont mix interests of this groups providing her own plots all the way to benefit herself and her House first of all. She is a hard mix of drow matron mother, surface elf, Loviatar champion and rogue from Scullport, where she was born from her captured mother and halfdrow merchant, that have been killed in her early youth after Seldarine remove cleric powers from her mother for intimate relationships with drow and house Tanor'Tal sent Kesra to seize trading roots from her halfdrow father, bastard of matron mother Tanor'Tal. Not long after that she was captured by iron ring and bought by church of Loviatar, where some female pristesses saw her fit for educating and training. Of course her ultimate goal is to screw Seldarine and restore "her" kingdom under new order and religion, and she is very capable agent so Loviatar favors her like main enforcer in the North and give a blind eye to her relationships in her "house" and with her allies. So she tecnically fight for good like saving pinched Lords Allience from sarukhs and faerrims and shadovar, because they are her foes by all means.
a) Is she misogynistic stereotype?
b) Is she needed by weak good to repell plots of yuan-ti and sarukhs (which are not pleasent and cheerfull people and kill every damn merchant you buy from to seize your supply rout for example and wishy-washy good is not capable enough to counter magicall guerilia because it means to torture, to control slave traffic in scullport, to control drug traffic in the North, to use evil and mindcontrolling spells, to divert evil alliances by making evil alliances and so on and so on)
c) Can she merge in good|neutral party which she will count as allies?
d) Is she cartoonish?

[Sepultra]

I honestly don't think I'm talking about a caricature. Treating people as things is Evil. Doing it a little, in low-impact situations, may not be a problem. But if you're going to actually be Evil, as opposed to simply dark Neutral, I will expect that your primary--and in the end "ultimate"--perspective will be that people are things, even the ones you really, really like. Because something like unconditional love is incompatible with Evil. "Love" as in infatuation and enjoyment-of-another's-company are quite easily translated into instrumental values: my lover excites my passions, allows me to engage in intelligent conversation with others, etc. That's "caring for" a person in the way one would care for a nice pair of shellacked loafers, or a nice car; they're pleasant and provide a useful, comfortable, beneficial function. To drift from this in important, knowing ways is to drift away from Evil. To ultimately decide that no, others truly have intrinsic value, not for what they do for you or how they affect you but merely because they exist at all is to defect away from Evil. Not necessarily to Good--that requires actively valuing people as ends in themselves--but certainly away from Evil (and thus at least into Neutrality).

The honest problem here is that your entire argument constitutes a No True Scotsman. Evil is X and anything that is not X is not evil. Anything with an exception to X is "not evil worthy of the name" or something of the sort.

No one is suggesting for a moment that the view of people as tools is not in itself evil - even by D&D cosmology this is obviously evil if one acts upon it. However, you are ignoring the situations in which one can be Evil and not have this wholly apply.
Evil can be a great deal of things beyond "Treating people as things" - in fact, by D&D cosmology, Deep Ecology could easily be considered evil given the actions that may stem from it were one to take the view that human society is parasitic in many ways and thus must be expunged. By your own standard of ethics - which I am obviously not familiar with and I won't pretend I am overly interested in it given that this is a 3.PF forum - this may be an act which could be considered morally neutral or even good given that the intent and act is to preserve the natural world and holds no regard as people as "things", but simply not of greater value than the life which it damages.
It is equally possible for this person to hold a great deal of genuine love in their hearts for a large number of people - perhaps even those who they believe wholeheartedly must be removed in order to protect something of overall greater value. This does not require any view of people as "things" nor does it require a lack of love, friendship, or anything else. The fact is, however, that in the radical act of killing innocent people, the character in question is Evil. Capital E.

The view that Evil isn't flexible is rather nonsensical. Fanaticism can lead to being Evil both in reality and in fantasy - in D&D it is far easier to label one as such.
And before you cite Red Fel again, being on this forum does not mandate that one takes Red Fel as an authority on all things Evil - although the guide is really well written and enjoyable, I think he himself would happily admit that it doesn't cover everything Evil.

Edit: adding this here instead of posting again


If slaughtering baby goblins is "not inappropriate for a Good character" in Pathfinder, then it follows that very little is.

It doesn't, honestly. What follows from this is that there is a view of evil as a force that is infectious and something that the average mortal cannot defeat if they are pre-disposed to it.
This isn't justification for torture at all. Torturing the baby goblins simply because they're evil isn't justified by this because the intent of the act of killing them is to stop the spread of evil. The belief that goblins are nature by evil can be wrong (I know nothing about PF in this regard) but a good character could very well commit the act in full belief it was good. Solely from the passage you posted, "very little is off limits for good characters" does not follow.

[Duff]

A post I made on "What's Wrong With Lawful Good?" also relates here.

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?597966-What-s-Wrong-With-Lawful-Good&p=24155481&posted=1#post24155481



Looking back over a gaming life of over 30 years, I think a lot of the issues come from what I'm going to call simple* characterisation.
A table with simple characterisation is more likely to be one where character's personalities were not built to be able to adventure together.
Paladins are more likely to be dark and edgy and emphasise law or bright and shiny and always right (just ask them)
A table with simple characterisation is unlikely to have an evil character for very long before that character has to go or the campaign ends. These table are more likely to have (and need) a "No evil characters" rule
Evil characters are more likely to be in an evil campaign where the reason the PCs stay together is hand waved as "We can kill more stuff and win more loot together" and accept that characters do whatever they do and as long as it doesn't affect my character that's fine.

*simple, as against sophisticated. Sophisticated characterisation requires (but does not always come with) maturity of the player as a roleplayer. I want to emphasise that sophisticated isn't better, it's more complex and that's not what everybody wants or needs even if they can do it.
It includes:
1 - Understanding that a roleplaying game is a shared experience and one's character will be part of the experience for the other players as well
2 - That a game which is not enjoyed by everyone won't run for long
3 - That a game will often work better (provide more fun for more of the players) when character personality and player- group dynamic clash, its better to bend the character and these clashes can often be prevented by a good session 0 type conversation around everyone's characters and the style of game it will be.
4 - Alignment is not the same as personality or motivation You can build a character and then align based on that or you can choose an alignment and make sure the character fits
5- Shades of grey are interesting story elements, not traps for the paladin (unless the paladin's player and the GM want to do a fall-and-redemption plot.