Doppelganger alignment?

[tchntm43]

MM lists Doppelgangers as Neutral. But it also makes it clear that the basis of doppelganger existence is to murder someone and then take their place in society (and, although not 5e, there is a ton of this behavior in Baldur's Gate). This seems like a cut and dry example of evil behavior to me.

[MaxWilson]

MM lists Doppelgangers as Neutral. But it also makes it clear that the basis of doppelganger existence is to murder someone and then take their place in society (and, although not 5e, there is a ton of this behavior in Baldur's Gate). This seems like a cut and dry example of evil behavior to me.

Well, maybe. What would you say about a farmer whose existence is predicated upon slaughtering animals and exchanging their dead bodies for cash to support more generations of little farmers? Evil or not?

I think it depends upon the attitude of said doppelgangers towards humans. Are they malicious or just matter-of-fact about not viewing humans as "real" people?

[MoiMagnus]

Among the editions, doppleganger were Neutral (1e), Neutral Evil (2e), Usually Neutral (3e), Unaligned (4e), Neutral (5e).

The FR wiki has the following lines:


They were lazy but cunning creatures, who killed or disposed of people then assumed their place. While not actually evil, doppelgangers were extremely self-centered and liable to look down on their victims. Because of their laziness and selfishness, they rarely ever had any interest in raising their young.

It seems that for the designers, anything short of mass murder is not enough to be evil. And "just" being a complete egoistic jerk and murdering few peoples to take their place and deceive their loved ones is still in the neutral territory.

EDIT: I found in another wiki (Faerunian) the reason why they are neutral in the rules, and even unaligned in 4e. TLDR "amoral peoples are neutral, like animals, you need to care about morality to be evil".


Because they live according to the borrowed morals and ethics of other races, doppelgangers are usually neutral in alighment, with no strong opinions on on the properties of good, evil, law, or chaos. Doppelgangers regularly "portray" creatures of different alignments, although their psyches are amazingly toughened to resist any permanent shift from acting in such a manner. They retain their own objectivity regardless of the intensity of emotions that they exhibit on the surface. On occasion, doppelgangers stray from the racial norm of neutrality -- and their inclination toward duplicity and deceit means that most of these individuals fall to evil.