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Bartmanhomer
2020-03-08, 10:48 PM
I just thought of something? I know that alignment is a choice when a player trying to decide when they try to stick with their alignment or change it for whatever reason and action they cause. So my question really is changing alignment easy or hard?

Lvl45DM!
2020-03-08, 11:42 PM
Becoming more evil is easy, becoming more good is hard.

Becoming neutral is easy becoming more chaotic or lawful is hard

OldTrees1
2020-03-09, 12:04 AM
Alignment is easiest seen in hindsight and it can change quickly or slowly.

Remember the Paladin Miko? She went through a lot of changes (albeit staying roughly Lg). Some of them were snap changes with a catalyst and others took some build up.

Segev
2020-03-09, 12:12 AM
Generally speaking, it's hard to do if you were accurately represented initially. It is pretty easy to do if you weren't. Alignment is descriptive, not prescriptive, so while there may be some "early installment weirdness" with effects pertaining to alignment working 'incorrectly' on you, if you're engaged in activities that reveal your true alignment is other than what you start with on your stat page, you'll find it pretty easy to change.

If you've got a history, though, it's fairly difficult. That said, the reason it SEEMS easy to change to an evil alignment and hard to change to a good one is because there are things good people just don't do, while evil people can ACT good and not shift their alignment in the slightest if they keep demonstrating that they're still perfectly willing to engage in evil when it suits them.

Kelb_Panthera
2020-03-09, 03:20 AM
Yes.

It can be easily changed through deliberate action, potentially quite quicklly if you get frequent opportunties to act in line with what will be your new alignment. This is, however, generally considered to be bad play. It usually comes off as you either lied when you made your sheet or you're trying to game the system.

It can also be quite difficult and slow to change if you're being organically pulled back and forth by what you or your character thinks is right and the ever-changing situation on the ground in your game. This is usually considered more acceptable unless you're just not matching the tone of the group.

Also of note is that some systems, particularly 3e, have a whole host of magical effects that can change your alignment instantly whether you'd particularly like it to be changed or not. They can drastically complicate matters if they're in play.

MoiMagnus
2020-03-09, 08:51 AM
Becoming more evil is easy, becoming more good is hard.

Becoming neutral is easy becoming more chaotic or lawful is hard

Why this asymmetry, though?
I would say going from evil to neutral should also be easier than going from neutral to evil. [Or every change difficult, chose what your prefer]

Peoples tend to be much more strict on "how to maintain a good alignment" than "how to maintain an evil alignment", and I disagree with that. If you start taking care of peoples and saving life, you should lose your evil alignment as fast as losing your good alignment if you start making people's life worse and killing peoples.


I just thought of something? I know that alignment is a choice when a player trying to decide when they try to stick with their alignment or change it for whatever reason and action they cause. So my question really is changing alignment easy or hard?

That's mostly up to the DM. But alignment is descriptive, not prescriptive. The characters behave like they behave, and the alignment is just here to "judge" their behavior, not constrain it. It is as easy to change alignment as is it to change the behavior of the character and its personal goal. Unless trauma or mental illness, peoples don't change every other day going from one opposite to another. If you want your character to change alignment, your question should not be "how hard is it to change alignment?", but "how can I make a believable evolution of the personality of my character?", and the alignment will simply change when the character would have indeed changed.

Keltest
2020-03-09, 08:56 AM
Why this asymmetry, though?

Because that's just what evil is. Its a lowering of standards, abandoning of principles. Most evil people don't wake up in the morning, practice their mustache twirling in front of the mirror and then go "I am now prepared to perpetrate a great evil today!", they simply live their lives and, when it comes time to make a choice, choose the road of convenience instead of the harder road of greater morality.

Batcathat
2020-03-09, 09:00 AM
Because that's just what evil is. Its a lowering of standards, abandoning of principles. Most evil people don't wake up in the morning, practice their mustache twirling in front of the mirror and then go "I am now prepared to perpetrate a great evil today!", they simply live their lives and, when it comes time to make a choice, choose the road of convenience instead of the harder road of greater morality.

While this is sort of true, I'm not sure how much of the "low standards behavior" that would qualify as D&D Evil though. It depends on what kind of choices you're faced with, of course, but I feel like a lot of the time you'd end up more in the Neutral zone.

Bartmanhomer
2020-03-09, 09:04 AM
While this is sort of true, I'm not sure how much of the "low standards behaviour" that would qualify as D&D Evil though. It depends on what kind of choices you're faced with, of course, but I feel like a lot of the time you'd end up more in the Neutral zone.

I do agree. When a good character shift to neutral then shifts to evil depending on the behaviour they choose to make.

Morty
2020-03-09, 11:16 AM
Because that's just what evil is. Its a lowering of standards, abandoning of principles. Most evil people don't wake up in the morning, practice their mustache twirling in front of the mirror and then go "I am now prepared to perpetrate a great evil today!", they simply live their lives and, when it comes time to make a choice, choose the road of convenience instead of the harder road of greater morality.

Moreover, doing evil things affects the morality of a good/neutral character far more than doing good/neutral things affects an evil one. A good person doing terrible things is a moral dilemma, tragedy, challenge, etc. An evil person doing something good because it benefits them or they feel like it is hardly the same thing.

Man_Over_Game
2020-03-09, 01:54 PM
Moreover, doing evil things affects the morality of a good/neutral character far more than doing good/neutral things affects an evil one. A good person doing terrible things is a moral dilemma, tragedy, challenge, etc. An evil person doing something good because it benefits them or they feel like it is hardly the same thing.

Well said.

It's not so much "Good" vs. "Evil", but "Selfless" vs. "Selfish".

A kind person has few reasons to act selfish, but a selfish person has many reasons to act kind.

Also, killing a child isn't worth the same weight as helping a child.

Jay R
2020-03-09, 02:31 PM
That depends entirely on the DM. In some games, it's nearly impossible; in other games, the DM makes it all too likely to happen.

in one game I had to tell my DM, more than once, "No, my (2e) Thief is not becoming Lawful. He's not picking pockets right now for one reason only: he's getting rich traveling with a Paladin, and doesn't want to risk losing that lucrative career path."

Segev
2020-03-09, 02:35 PM
Because that's just what evil is. Its a lowering of standards, abandoning of principles. Most evil people don't wake up in the morning, practice their mustache twirling in front of the mirror and then go "I am now prepared to perpetrate a great evil today!", they simply live their lives and, when it comes time to make a choice, choose the road of convenience instead of the harder road of greater morality.

However, Megamind and Dr. Horrible show us that those who do are the true supervillains.



A thought that I'm not ready to declare as a real thesis, but rather would like to examine a bit: Part of the reason it seems "easy" to fall to evil but "hard" to rise to good is that a good person can't do evil in the name of good and stay really all that good (baring really extreme circumstances), while an evil person can do all sorts of good and stay evil as long as he's doing it for selfish reasons and isn't refraining from selfish evil acts for any unselfish reasons. (Self-denial in the name of delayed gratification isn't the same as denying oneself to help another.)

A man who is a good family man, loves his dog and children, and helps out his community with charitable works and donations who also makes that money running a slave-capturing business that sells people he'll never know other than as chattel, slaughters those who are too recalcitrant or weak to be worth feeding and breaking to slavery, and generally provides them to brothels and sweat shops and plantations and mines for prices that sustain his lifestyle and ability to support his family and charitable works in his community, is still an evil man. Especially if he personally trains his torturers in the art of breaking slaves, whether he derives sadistic pleasure from it or not.

Going from a sadistic lout whose life revolved solely around abusing such prospective slaves and making money, whose business cohorts are not really "friends" so much as people he shares interests with but would backstab if he could make a quick buck, to falling in love and having a family and growing to love and support his community, doesn't make him turn non-evil.

Going from a good family man who runs an honest and upstanding business that respects the peoples of the world his traveling trade caravans go to, to one who accepts slaves, to one who captures them himself as per the initial description, WOULD move him from Good to Evil alignment.

Or would it? Is this man Evil, or Neutral? It seems like he's pretty Evil, honestly, especially with the personal hand in the cruelty.

But is it just a matter of degree, or scope?

Let's take this to an extreme to examine it: Let's say that he is the most all-loving, saintly man alive. Good family man, generous to his community and even to total strangers. But for some reason, there's just one person he absolutely cannot bring himself to think kindly of. He is happy when that person suffers, and, whenever he has the opportunity, rubs salt in that person's wounds (literally or metaphorically). He maliciously ruins that person's life, and if possible brings that person into his power to torment and torture, and the only reason he doesn't just kill him is because he thinks that's too good for this person.

Maybe he's worked it out in his head to justify it as him not being cruel, but this person being just so awful and rotten that he needs to be kept under heel. And he's not abusive; the person just keeps needing to be reprimanded for bad behavior. And anything the person does that even slightly inconveniences our otherwise-saintly man is obviously a sign of malfeasance by this target of his ire, so brings down what is to any other observer disproportionate retribution.

Is he evil, or neutral, or just good with a REALLY nasty foible that may bring reprimand from the very good god(s) he worships?

If he's good, but just with a nasty sin on his record, how many people can he treat so cruelly (while justifying it to himself as them "deserving it") before he slips to Neutral? How many people can he drop from the list of those he'll do anything for before he stops being "good?"

I'm wondering if, perhaps, it is easier to get "up" from Evil to Neutral than we generally think. That Neutral people can do some pretty nasty, Evil things, and still be Neutral, because they do them more out of callousness towards those who they don't know than out of malice or sadism. Perhaps all it takes is developing a sufficiently large "in-group" towards which your behavior is generally Good to start shifting you towards Neutral. You'll never rise higher while clinging to particularly evil ways, but....

On the other hand, that almost seems to excuse Evil if you also do enough Good. And I'm positive that will rub the wrong way. But "being good" doesn't mean "being without sin." It just means your general motivations can be counted as "good," and you try to act in a "good" manner. Being Evil is about it being for Number One: yourself. The more your deeds are to help others, the more Neutral you're trending. Maybe. Again, this is something I'm unsure of, but feel needs exploration.

And it ties back to the difficulty of changing alignments by questioning what kind of difficulty there is in shifting alignments. What behaviors are "overriding," and how they define your alignment for you.

wilphe
2020-03-09, 04:56 PM
Why this asymmetry, though?


Robin: "Self-control is sure tough sometimes, Batman!"
Batman: "All virtues are, old chum. Indeed, that's why they're virtues."

MoiMagnus
2020-03-09, 06:31 PM
...

Depends on circumstances under which the character live. Anakin Skywalker is essentially characterised by "I'm willing to protect the ones I love at any cost". In context where this motivation leads him to good acts, he is good aligned (beginning of his life, and redemption death). In context where it leads him to become Darth Vader and seek vengeance against the Jedi, he is evil.

For your slave-trader / good-father, the more time he is in a context that makes him act good (being with his family), the more good-aligned he will be. And the more time he is in a context that makes him act evil (his business), the more evil-aligned he will be.

And if you're universe is ok with quick-changing alignment, the alignment would change from one another each time he goes to work or goes back from work. If your alignment system has more of a buffer in time (as most have), then it will average out.

And yes, I have absolutely no problem calling someone who rarely does very evil stuff neutral. I'd prefer call him "good AND evil" if that was an option, because I don't like seeing good and evil are things compensating each others, but that's not an option in D&D alignment and I'd prefer seeing good and evil compensating each others than evil preventing any good from being relevant.

LibraryOgre
2020-03-10, 12:18 PM
Moreover, doing evil things affects the morality of a good/neutral character far more than doing good/neutral things affects an evil one. A good person doing terrible things is a moral dilemma, tragedy, challenge, etc. An evil person doing something good because it benefits them or they feel like it is hardly the same thing.

Very much this; Lawful and Good both have this "problem", in that they have moral and ethical standards that violation of them moves them away from the goal, while evil and chaos can both claim self-interest when they go along with it.

Why didn't the chaotic evil person kill or rob someone? Because they knew the consequences would be bad for them, so they chose not to... no respect for life or property, just a preference not to get punished. It might be why Mort the Bartender pings as evil to your Paladin... he's not slipping poison in the drinks because there's no profit for him there, but he's certainly thought about it, especially when you gabble on about how much money you took out of that tomb and still tip him horribly, you cheap bastard.

SimonMoon6
2020-03-11, 05:54 PM
Changing alignment is easy. Just erase your alignment that you have written on your character sheet and write a new there instead. Easy! :smallsmile:

Basically, there are few game mechanics for changing alignment. Players rarely change the alignments of their characters. Instead, the DM will say, "Hey, alignments are descriptive and what you're doing now is described by a different alignment." On the other hand, you can have a DM who says, "You can't take that action because alignments are prescriptive not descriptive." The descriptive/prescriptive debates goes on forever. Alignments really don't mean anything in any real world sense, so changing them is sort of left up to the players and the DM.

Or... buy a helmet of opposite alignment and deliberately fail your saving throw. There, you've changed your alignment and it was easy.

But if you want to think in real world terms... how much good does a murderer have to do before we let him out of jail and say, "Sorry for the inconvenience, mister murderer"? Well... there's no amount of charity or kindness that would ever make up for being a murderer, right? In the real world, once you've committed to the path of evil, there's no societal forgiveness (religions may forgive, but societies don't), no matter what.

But D&D has very little real world morality in its alignment system. (Poisoning someone is EEEeeeeeeeeeeevil, but stabbing them in the back is perfectly fine.) But I would at least hope that D&D morality would never be as easily altered as it is in Fable II, where you can kill all the innocent civilians you want (making you really evil) but then, as long as you become a vegetarian, you can slide all the way back up the alignment scale to a saintly level of goodness, the highest level of goodness that any character (even non-murderers) can attain.

Segev
2020-03-11, 06:40 PM
Changing alignment is easy. Just erase your alignment that you have written on your character sheet and write a new there instead. Easy! :smallsmile:

Basically, there are few game mechanics for changing alignment. Players rarely change the alignments of their characters. Instead, the DM will say, "Hey, alignments are descriptive and what you're doing now is described by a different alignment." On the other hand, you can have a DM who says, "You can't take that action because alignments are prescriptive not descriptive." The descriptive/prescriptive debates goes on forever. Alignments really don't mean anything in any real world sense, so changing them is sort of left up to the players and the DM.

Or... buy a helmet of opposite alignment and deliberately fail your saving throw. There, you've changed your alignment and it was easy.

But if you want to think in real world terms... how much good does a murderer have to do before we let him out of jail and say, "Sorry for the inconvenience, mister murderer"? Well... there's no amount of charity or kindness that would ever make up for being a murderer, right? In the real world, once you've committed to the path of evil, there's no societal forgiveness (religions may forgive, but societies don't), no matter what.

But D&D has very little real world morality in its alignment system. (Poisoning someone is EEEeeeeeeeeeeevil, but stabbing them in the back is perfectly fine.) But I would at least hope that D&D morality would never be as easily altered as it is in Fable II, where you can kill all the innocent civilians you want (making you really evil) but then, as long as you become a vegetarian, you can slide all the way back up the alignment scale to a saintly level of goodness, the highest level of goodness that any character (even non-murderers) can attain.

To be fair, redemption is a thing.

And some murderers who were convicted and sent to prison do later walk free. Murder isn't always a life sentence, nor always a death sentence. Societally, legally, "paying your debt" can be done without doing a single good deed, and just by staying in a particular establishment and not leaving for a specified period of time.

A truly repentent murderer who set out to right hsi wrongs as best he could, then started over doing good and generally doing his best, may well not even be known as a murderer by those he's now living with and surounded by. They may see him as a wonderful person. Should they learn of his past, they may not believe it, and even if he confesses, their first instinct might be to ask, "Okay, but what REALLY happened?" Learning he was a horrible, evil man who now feels great remorse and wishes he could do more to atone? Some might turn on him, but it's highly likely that they, not being victims of his in any way, forgive him (for whatever level of forgiveness they're entitled to give) and see him still as a good man who has put his past behind him.

That said, yes, there is generally a sense that evil is mud on a garment. As long as there's any there, you're dirty. In D&D, though, that's not the standard; D&D doesn't have the concept of Grace extended by a divine Sacrifice to pay for sin. Instead, D&D has more of a model of balance of good and evil: yes, doing enough good DOES counterbalance evil. (It still might seem like evil is easier to fall to than good is to rise to, especially if you can conceivably perform so much evil that no amount of good will counterbalance it, but you can't conceivably perform so much good that no amount of evil will counterbalance it.)

As of this thread, I'm leaning more, however, towards a notion that neutrality is the one that's hard to escape. If you were good or evil, then started "slipping" by performing too many or too serious a set of acts in the other direction, you can become neutral...but actually foresaking your old alignment enough to start moving towards the other extreme is a lot harder. "He doth protest too much" is still possible; you don't have to accept your new alignment to change to it. But if you're "torn" by things, if you're struggling to do the right things for the wrong reasons (or vice-versa), you might be stuck at Neutral rather than edging over to the other extreme.

Though as with anything alignment-related, there's a lot of judgment call and nuance to every situation.

LibraryOgre
2020-03-11, 07:44 PM
Basically, there are few game mechanics for changing alignment.

Depends highly on your edition.

Lvl45DM!
2020-03-11, 09:22 PM
Why this asymmetry, though?
I would say going from evil to neutral should also be easier than going from neutral to evil. [Or every change difficult, chose what your prefer]

Peoples tend to be much more strict on "how to maintain a good alignment" than "how to maintain an evil alignment", and I disagree with that. If you start taking care of peoples and saving life, you should lose your evil alignment as fast as losing your good alignment if you start making people's life worse and killing peoples.



Taking care of people and saving lives is harder than being selfish though. Its also really easy to have selfish motivations.

The asymmetry comes from the fact that to be Good you need good actions AND good intentions. Evil just needs either one.

Also Evil and Good are not just two sides of the same coin. Good is actually good and Evil is bad and wrong. Doing the right thing is harder.

SimonMoon6
2020-03-12, 11:48 AM
Depends highly on your edition.

Does it really though?

Is there an edition with LOTS of game mechanics dealing with alignment change?

I am pretty sure that that's not the case in 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 3.5, Pathfinder, or Pathfinder 2nd edition. I'm not an expert in 4th or 5th editions. Are those the editions in which suddenly we have LOTS of game mechanics revolving around alignment change?

In the editions I'm familiar with, at best, there's some mention that the DM might change your alignment if you stray from the path. And in 1st edition it was stated to be pretty much a bad thing. And the atonement spell might help you get your old alignment back.

What am I missing?

Keltest
2020-03-12, 12:22 PM
Does it really though?

Is there an edition with LOTS of game mechanics dealing with alignment change?

I am pretty sure that that's not the case in 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 3.5, Pathfinder, or Pathfinder 2nd edition. I'm not an expert in 4th or 5th editions. Are those the editions in which suddenly we have LOTS of game mechanics revolving around alignment change?

In the editions I'm familiar with, at best, there's some mention that the DM might change your alignment if you stray from the path. And in 1st edition it was stated to be pretty much a bad thing. And the atonement spell might help you get your old alignment back.

What am I missing?

Have you perhaps heard of the Helm of Opposite Alignment? Or the Deck of Many Things?

LibraryOgre
2020-03-12, 12:42 PM
Does it really though?

Is there an edition with LOTS of game mechanics dealing with alignment change?

I am pretty sure that that's not the case in 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 3.5, Pathfinder, or Pathfinder 2nd edition. I'm not an expert in 4th or 5th editions. Are those the editions in which suddenly we have LOTS of game mechanics revolving around alignment change?


I don't know about "lots", but 2e went with voluntary changes in alignment doubling the XP cost of the next level (DMG, p. 29). 1e went with "immediately lose a level, regardless of circumstance"(p. 25). Both then go into how you can recover from this, including spells designed specifically to overcome the effects of involuntary alignment change. Paladins, of course, famously can't even flirt with another alignment, and clerics, druids, monks, and rangers are all alignment restricted (as are thieves and assassins, though to a lesser extent).

Alignment and its changes are pretty big deals. I won't comment on "lots", but it gets at least as much space in AD&D as dealing with lycanthropy, or playing a monster.

Ortho
2020-03-12, 02:30 PM
Have you perhaps heard of the Helm of Opposite Alignment? Or the Deck of Many Things?

I mean, that's only two items. I wouldn't consider that to be "lots" of examples

Guizonde
2020-03-12, 08:23 PM
That depends entirely on the DM. In some games, it's nearly impossible; in other games, the DM makes it all too likely to happen.

in one game I had to tell my DM, more than once, "No, my (2e) Thief is not becoming Lawful. He's not picking pockets right now for one reason only: he's getting rich traveling with a Paladin, and doesn't want to risk losing that lucrative career path."

that was my experience too. i've never liked the alignment system since dm's and players alike read it as prescriptive (doubly so in the case of divine classes), but here's my two examples.

i played a (dnd 3.5) cg cleric of pelor that was a heretic for practicing mortification of the flesh to atone for his mostly imaginary sins. i talked to the dm about my character's evolution into radiant servant which necessitates a neutral good alignment. we thought about how my playstyle upheld good and selflessness above all else, and by next session i was ng and ready to level up. basically a retcon. easy, done.

in my numerous attempts to game the system and exploit weird raw phrasings, i played an inquisitor in pathfinder to be as free as possible with what i wanted to do. namely because my group was all divine and subject to a fall-happy dm, i took the responsibility of doing all the evil things so no one would fall. i started out chaotic good, next session i was chaotic evil, the next after that lawful neutral, back to chaotic evil for reducing a bandit into eternal slavery, a neutral good bit because i saved an orphanage single-handedly, then on to chaotic neutral for being a bomb throwing anarchist, then... you get the idea. my alignment changed several times per session at one point until the dm agreed that alignment mechanics sucked and we just described my alignment as my character's name (chaotic josé, which is simply not credible in the least).

i get the appeal if it's part of a character arc meant to highlight positive change or a fall, and done well it's awesome. i'm reminded of the npc paladin of tyr in the neverwinter nights pc game, now that was a well written and tragic fall. but most of the time alignment is seen more of a dead weight or a trap by both players and dm's since it too easily screws up good roleplay because "the rules are the rules and the rules come first before even fun".

the best time i've ever had playing with alignment was when i wrote down "arms dealer" in the field. nominally lawful neutral, but giving an example worked much better than a concept that's hard to describe and so subject to interpretation. i mean, yeah, arms dealers sell death, sure, but most importantly they're businessmen and whether they sell to the resistance or to the reich they honor a contract. at least, i found it fit "lawful neutral" pretty well.

Alcore
2020-03-13, 01:54 PM
I just thought of something? I know that alignment is a choice when a player trying to decide when they try to stick with their alignment or change it for whatever reason and action they cause. So my question really is changing alignment easy or hard?

yes and no. It all depends on the game, edition and the GM themselves.


Unless something drastic is done I don't change anyone's alignment despite Pathfinder's attempts at making mechanics for shifting alignment. Usually a paladin, druid and barbarian don't have too much to worry about. The names themselves are ingrained in our collective understanding in the same way Thor and Superman are. Unless they go completely against the grain a player generally follows the archetype as the class name subliminally messages them what should be done. Some paladin's follow the law, some follow good. Some druids are True Neutral to the point of refusing to interact with anything for fear of taking a side.


it is too much work to judge alignment and play god. We have a game, some snacks and stressed adults; lets play, work off the stress and leave with a smile...

Guizonde
2020-03-13, 03:57 PM
it is too much work to judge alignment and play god. We have a game, some snacks and stressed adults; lets play, work off the stress and leave with a smile...

this, so very much this. you nailed it, alcore.

SimonMoon6
2020-03-13, 04:12 PM
Have you perhaps heard of the Helm of Opposite Alignment? Or the Deck of Many Things?

Does my first post in this thread mention the Helm of Opposite Alignment?

Tanarii
2020-03-18, 02:28 AM
What edition? Alignment is different things in different editions.

For example, in 5e alignment is best used as neither prescriptive nor descriptive. Both defeat the purpose. It is best used as motivational. A roleplaying tool. It's one of many personality traits, and along with the others should be considered when making in-character decisions (aka Roleplaying).

In that regard, it's both easy and hard to change, easy because you just write down the new alignment's typical (but not constantly required) associated behavior, and start considering it with your other personality traits when making decisions going forward. IMO still hard, because suddenly changing a character you've been playing one way isn't any easier than suddenly changing ones own behavior. :smallwink: