"But I didn't do anything!" - Falling to Evil without taking actions?

[Jowgen]

Due to an ongoing debate in another thread, the question arose how a Good aligned creature might come to change in alignment all the way to Evil without:

a) taking any Evil action.
b) being subject to any alignment-altering magic.

Falling is generally much easier than redemption, so seems to me there should be routes towards this, but can't point to anything atm.

[Maat Mons]

There may be situations where inaction is the Evil option.

[MaxiDuRaritry]

Daring to play a paladin under the wrong DM.

[Duke of Urrel]

Due to an ongoing debate in another thread, the question arose how a Good aligned creature might come to change in alignment all the way to Evil without:

a) taking any Evil action.
b) being subject to any alignment-altering magic.

Falling is generally much easier than redemption, so seems to me there should be routes towards this, but can't point to anything atm.

You can fall from Goodness immediately by taking one Evil action, but I believe you can't fall from Goodness merely by failing to do Good only once – unless you are motivated by obvious cruelty. For example, if you refuse to share water with somebody who's thirsty or refuse to share food with somebody who's starving, even though you could easily end their suffering, this qualifies as Evil, because it's just cruel.

If you fail to do a Good deed not because you are cruel, but because doing this deed would cost you dearly or put you at risk, then I think this failure is moral Neutrality, not Evil. A single failure of this kind shouldn't make you fall from Goodness, in my opinion. However, if you make a habit of neglecting to do Good deeds when you are called upon to do so, you can't qualify as Good for long and must soon become morally Neutral. It's up to the dungeon master to decide how long this takes.

Especially you're a cleric, and even more especially if you're a paladin, you and your dungeon master should have some shared understanding about what can and cannot make you fall. It's always good to consult a Phylactery of Faithfulness if you have any doubt about how to remain true to your chosen alignment, but this really only means that it's good to consult your dungeon master.

[GeoffWatson]

I don't think it's possible.
In general terms, a character has the Evil alignment if they consistently do Evil actions.

They could fall to Neutral by consistently failing to do Good actions, but they wouldn't lead to Evil.

I guess they could be considered Evil without actually doing Evil if they constantly think about doing Evil but don't because of fear of consequences (eg they constantly think about raping or murdering people but don't only because they are afraid they'll be arrested.) But this is unclear and up to the DM.

[Particle_Man]

Depends if “ignoring a cry for help from a suffering innocent person in need” counts as an evil action according to your DM.

But alignment issues have no winners in the internet. Talk to your DM is the only way through this thicket that I can see.

[PoeticallyPsyco]

Hmm, I've heard it said that Good is defined by deeds, and Evil by intents. So even if you keep doing the same actions, if your motive changes from "the right thing to do" to something selfish or even cruel then you'd certainly become Neutral, and maybe even Evil.

[Segev]

If you do nothing, it is almost always going to be a neutral action. Refraining from evil is a neutral action, not a good one. Choosing not to actively do a good deed is a neutral action, not an evil one. Motives can color this, but if the worst that cruelty and sadism lead one to do is fail to prevent people from suffering, I think the worst that can be said is that he is "not a good person." Likewise, even if watching people suffer causes a character pain and he refuses to engage in it, the best that can be said of him should he also do nothing to prevent it is that he's "not a bad person."

Inaction would have to be very very hard-motivated by aligned designs and be almost deliberately set up to enable the outcome to have a non-neutral alignment. If the reason the bomb is about to blow up the orphanage is because a villain set it there to kill them all, him choosing not to stop it is an affirmation of his earlier evil act, so might be considered evil rather than neutral. Not that it matters, since neutral inaction plus evil prior action still nets "evil."

Maybe a case could be made that it's evil not to clean up your own mess. Bob sets the dynamite to blow up the orphanage for its planned demolition. He has the means to stop the countdown in hand when he learns a person he hates is tied up inside the building, and will surely die. At this point, he set up the bomb and he has the means to stop the death his action inadvertently set in motion; one might argue he has responsibility to undo his action lest he be culpable, now that he knows of the probable outcome.

But all cases where "you do nothing, so you're evil" comes up are cases that required prior action. So you can't really be said to have "done nothing" and fallen to evil.

[Tzardok]

Does what happened with Baalzebul count? When he was an archon, he became so convinced of his own beauty and perfection that he became vain and self-absorbed. And then he just woke up one day in Baator.
He never really did a thing that caused him to fall; it was the change of his personality that did it.

Yes, I think that would be my answer. If you roleplay a slide into evil over a long time, I would allow an alignment change without any specific evil deads.

[Biggus]

Good and evil are defined in most detail in 3.5 at the start of BoED and BoVD, and they largely support what most people here have said: that an evil alignment requires actively evil deeds.

Personally, I would regard it as an evil act if you could prevent the death or suffering of others with no risk or loss to yourself but chose not through a complete indifference to their misery, but it's hard to imagine such situations coming up often enough to cause an alignment shift on their own unless the DM was deliberately contriving them to happen.

[Clistenes]

About being Evil because of inaction, I would say it depends on how dangerous, expensive, hard would be to act... if saving somebody requires that you risk your life or lose everything you have, I think inaction would count as Neutral...

If all you have to do is to call an ambulance, give somebody dying of thirst a glass of water or pulling out a baby that has fallen into a pool... yeah, I would say inaction would count as Evil...

[Thunder999]

You can fall from good to neutral by inaction, but not to evil.

In many ways it's what makes most neutral creatures neutral, they're not doing anything particularly wrong, but also aren't choosing to do good.

You have to actually do evil things to become evil.

[Telonius]

Yeah, "acts of omission" would be the thing that first comes to mind. If you have the means and opportunity to provide help to someone in a way that doesn't put you at any particular risk, and you decide not to do that, it's basically Evil by negligence. This would have to be something pretty egregious though, not just "I didn't help that old lady cross the street" level. Think, guy crawls out of the desert and collapses just before the oasis. You're the only one around, you see him, and realize that nobody else is going to help him. Giving him some water would save his life. You aren't on a time-sensitive world-saving quest. He isn't an obvious enemy or threat. You have plenty of water, giving it to him would be an extremely minor inconvenience to you at most. If you decide to let the guy die, I'd call that Evil.

You could probably argue that deciding to withhold the water would count as "doing something," but it's the only thing I can think of that would

[Silly Name]

Yeah, "acts of omission" would be the thing that first comes to mind. If you have the means and opportunity to provide help to someone in a way that doesn't put you at any particular risk, and you decide not to do that, it's basically Evil by negligence. This would have to be something pretty egregious though, not just "I didn't help that old lady cross the street" level. Think, guy crawls out of the desert and collapses just before the oasis. You're the only one around, you see him, and realize that nobody else is going to help him. Giving him some water would save his life. You aren't on a time-sensitive world-saving quest. He isn't an obvious enemy or threat. You have plenty of water, giving it to him would be an extremely minor inconvenience to you at most. If you decide to let the guy die, I'd call that Evil.

I mean, at this point we're basically trying to rules-lawyer ethics in order to obtain an alignment change without "technically" committing Evil "actions". Which is still a very doubtful interpretation, because making an active decision to let someone suffer simply because I don't feel like helping them (or worse, want to see them suffer) despite the fact I could help them with very little inconvenience to myself is something I'd argue counts as an act of Evil even it is done through inaction.


You could probably argue that deciding to withhold the water would count as "doing something," but it's the only thing I can think of that would

Yep. Any time you have a choice, you're engaging in some form of action, even if at the purely mental level. Neutral isn't simply "doing neither Good nor Evil", it's about not going out of your way to do either. Refusing to give a starving man a piece of bread when you have a buffet all to yourself is still Evil, because you're actively being a selfish jerk. Which is different from eating your buffet while also having a vague idea that there are people out there starving, which is merely Neutral.

[King of Nowhere]

yes, there are definitely times in which failing to help people would be evil by criminal negligence. as a general rule of thumb, when there are people at risk of life, and you are passing there, and helping them would entail no risk to you and only minor inconveniences. do notice that many of those instances would also qualify as criminal in the real world.
whether we would call them "actions" or not depends on semanthics

[SangoProduction]

Depends on the degree of the inaction.

If you're the king's guard and you hear that the assassination will happen on Friday... so you call in sick on Friday... that's a huge dereliction of duty, and in most countries of the world, you could be implicated in the conspiracy, despite not taking an "active" role in the assassination.

Same for being a get away driver, even if you weren't aware they were going to commit a crime.

Similarly, refusing to kick a murderer out of your home, and not reporting them, could be considered sheltering them.

Criminal neglect is a crime that happens when you have a duty of care, and you fail to uphold your duty.

Many people consider the act of not telling the (national socialists) the locations of (persecuted religious folk) to be an act of bravery and defiance - and definitely Good - despite specifically being a lack of action.

And the list goes on.

In general, inaction is not in and of itself evil (or illegal, to make that distinction). But there are cases where inaction is as good (or Evil) as action.

[Ramza00]

So to get metaphysical for a bit here.

Our current society and culture in the real world, likes to think in a linear way similar to physics. Cause leads to effect.

Well sometimes we become so practice with one way of thinking that mental habits get build up without realizing it.

Moral guilt leads to moral responsibility. This type of thinking is similar to cause leads to effect.

But I will argue that it is not just moral guilt that leads to moral responsibility, physical proximity also leads to moral responsibility. If a child is lost it is our duty as individuals and society to help the lost child. Likewise we have a moral responsibility to help our neighbors even if we did not harm our neighbors, that is part of being in a community, being part of a society is mutual aid. Maybe not all of the time but some of the time, this is what we owe to each other.

—————

What I said above is not a new concept but it is a concept our culture currently obscures and makes us less familiar with compared to our past history but also how other cultures have been organized. To explain why this happens is to explain history, philosophy, economics (where person X benefited from resources at that time but not person Y from the same time) and so on. I will not go further due to forum rules, but I bet everyone here is already somewhat familiar with the history we just have to remember and to look. To see what is proximate now in the present and what was proximate in the past.

Sidenote this is one of the flaws with the Lawful Neutral Chaotic, and Good Neutral Evil dichotomies. They are things in flux with different definitions in different books with different authors and this 9 way grid is partly influenced by a culture and its value system without realizing what it is obscuring and what it is highlighting. It is a messy definition system and a messy sorting system. Yet it exists even though it is in flux and has no shared meaning all agree too.

[Calthropstu]

Live in a large city.
Every day, I see bull**** of the highest order. Drug users lighting meth and crack near children at bus stops. Thieves riding around with stolen bikes. Shoplifters in stores. Assaults. Harrassment both racial and sexual in nature. And if you try to do anything about it such as step in or call the police, you become the bad guy. I was told by the police that I should have minded my own business instead of stopping a woman from repeatedly slamming a car with a shopping cart.

Doing good in a major city is the quickest way to lose all faith in humanity and want to end everything.

[H_H_F_F]

Live in a large city.
Every day, I see bull**** of the highest order. Drug users lighting meth and crack near children at bus stops. Thieves riding around with stolen bikes. Shoplifters in stores. Assaults. Harrassment both racial and sexual in nature. And if you try to do anything about it such as step in or call the police, you become the bad guy. I was told by the police that I should have minded my own business instead of stopping a woman from repeatedly slamming a car with a shopping cart.

Doing good in a major city is the quickest way to lose all faith in humanity and want to end everything.

I have things to say to that, but this is not the place to have this discussion. I'll only say that I live in a large city which I'm almost certain has more issues than wherever you live. I didn't come to the same conclusion. At all.

[Calthropstu]

I have things to say to that, but this is not the place to have this discussion. I'll only say that I live in a large city which I'm almost certain has more issues than wherever you live. I didn't come to the same conclusion. At all.

Eh, fair. My point is the overwhelming pushback when you try to stop rotten things from happening is more than enough to fuel a complete change in perspective. It can easily change from "I want to help as many people as I possibly can" to "Please drop a nuke on this city."

[King of Nowhere]

Eh, fair. My point is the overwhelming pushback when you try to stop rotten things from happening is more than enough to fuel a complete change in perspective. It can easily change from "I want to help as many people as I possibly can" to "Please drop a nuke on this city."

to be fair, the thing about "duty to act" is more on the kind of helping an injured person - at least, that's how i interpret it. the kind of situation where there isn't any doubt on the right course of action and no risk involved.
I mean, let's take the situation you recounted with the woman. consider the police perspective. the woman was committing vandalism, which is a minor crime; minor in that there is no damage to people. By intervening, a random civilian could escalate it into a brawl, with damage to people. from the police perspective, this is a bad outcome. it would be against forum rules to discuss the morality of this approach, though there are pros and cons. but in any case, there is a risk, and it makes it more of a grey area.
in the case of helping someone in immediate, dire need, there is no such risk - ok, technically there is a risk if you try to perform first aid on a wounded without knowing first aid, which is in fact the reason one should not try first aid without knowing what one's doing. but one can at least stop there, call for medical help, and then stay and check that medical help arrives.

[Calthropstu]

to be fair, the thing about "duty to act" is more on the kind of helping an injured person - at least, that's how i interpret it. the kind of situation where there isn't any doubt on the right course of action and no risk involved.
I mean, let's take the situation you recounted with the woman. consider the police perspective. the woman was committing vandalism, which is a minor crime; minor in that there is no damage to people. By intervening, a random civilian could escalate it into a brawl, with damage to people. from the police perspective, this is a bad outcome. it would be against forum rules to discuss the morality of this approach, though there are pros and cons. but in any case, there is a risk, and it makes it more of a grey area.
in the case of helping someone in immediate, dire need, there is no such risk - ok, technically there is a risk if you try to perform first aid on a wounded without knowing first aid, which is in fact the reason one should not try first aid without knowing what one's doing. but one can at least stop there, call for medical help, and then stay and check that medical help arrives.

But that's the very point of this thread. How could someone go from good to evil without taking evil actions? By witnessing so many evil actions and being pinned as a villian for attempting to intervene. Having numerous evil deeds done in front of you and to you and being ridiculed and attacked for trying to stop it. Getting hurt over and over again and start wanting to hurt the ones who hurt you and those like them. You will quickly fall from good to neutral. And when you genuinely want to destroy the city and everyone in it? Congrats, you're now evil.

[awa]

So picture this a man is betrayed and imprisoned in solitary unable to take any meaningful actions. While in prison he spends his entire time imagining more and more depraved vengeance against an increasingly large array of people. The person who betrayed him, and then when fantasizing about hurting them is not enough imagining hurting their family and so on. Its not just an idle whim if he has the opportunity to do it, he will take it.

He hasn't done anything evil either through action or inaction but I would consider it enough to make him evil.

[MR_Anderson]

I think it is important to realize that choosing not to take an action actually isn’t possible.

See, choosing not to act is an act in and of itself; thus the quote, “Not to act is to act!”


Hmm, I've heard it said that Good is defined by deeds, and Evil by intents. So even if you keep doing the same actions, if your motive changes from "the right thing to do" to something selfish or even cruel then you'd certainly become Neutral, and maybe even Evil.

I would disagree with this as the “means justifying the ends” vs the “ends justifying the means“ argument is best how to understand the Chaotic vs Law argument, therefore Chaotic Good would not fit the mold of Deeds vs Intents. CG can be some of the best Villains.

Ultimately, intent is the basis for both good or evil.

If a Good Character saw an individual fall overboard and just ignored it, it would be an evil act. If a Good Character chose not to speak up to provide witness to save another individual who was innocent of crimes, that would be an evil act. A Good Character can easily perform acts of evil by not doing a single thing, because choosing not to take action is actually choosing an action.

That said if the person falling overboard was the spy that was trying to cause a mutiny, and the rogue of the party managed to get him drunk as part of the plan to have him fall over the side, then it wouldn’t be evil, as maybe the Good Character decided to allow fate decide the mutinous spy’s life, and his falling overboard would save lives.

The DM asking a player to explain his character’s actions or non-actions is needed sometimes.

Depending on how bad the inaction is, it could go straight to evil, especially if it causes the loss of life to a close party member. I wouldn’t penalize a character stuck in a tough call for taking no action, especially if the thought was to take no action only to take action with a better scenario down the road, but yes falling to evil when a simple action knowingly could have done good instead of evil is likely, even though falling to neutral is more likely.

Really it comes down to the DM.

[Clistenes]

So picture this a man is betrayed and imprisoned in solitary unable to take any meaningful actions. While in prison he spends his entire time imagining more and more depraved vengeance against an increasingly large array of people. The person who betrayed him, and then when fantasizing about hurting them is not enough imagining hurting their family and so on. Its not just an idle whim if he has the opportunity to do it, he will take it.

He hasn't done anything evil either through action or inaction but I would consider it enough to make him evil.

I dunno... how do we know for sure that he would do any of that given the chance? How can we be sure that, when confronted with a real child, he won't back out and he won't be able to hurt the family of his enemy? I wouldn't call him evil until he crosses the line and actually does something...

Of course, if you have a deterministic view of reality, you can argue that his mind works in such a way that, given the chance, we can be sure he will hurt his enemy's family... but is the D&D universe deterministic? Or do people in the D&D universe have freedom to choose between Evil and Good...?

[Cortillaen]

I dunno... how do we know for sure that he would do any of that given the chance? How can we be sure that, when confronted with a real child, he won't back out and he won't be able to hurt the family of his enemy? I wouldn't call him evil until he crosses the line and actually does something...

Of course, if you have a deterministic view of reality, you can argue that his mind works in such a way that, given the chance, we can be sure he will hurt his enemy's family... but is the D&D universe deterministic? Or do people in the D&D universe have freedom to choose between Evil and Good...?
Sounds like there is a little of the old question, "Is alignment prescriptive or descriptive?", in there. I happen to come down firmly on the side of the latter, such that a being is evil because it does evil acts, as opposed to saying a being does evil acts because it is evil (granted, there is some wonkiness in there thanks to aligned planes and the denizens thereof, but that topic is full of wonk). Now, "descriptive of what?" is a valid question as well. Some people say acts alone, so you can have whatever horrific fantasies you want so long as you never act on them. I'm not sure that is feasible outside of GM fiat saying "The minds of people in this world work completely differently than those of real-world humans", but I suppose you could do it. My thinking is that, if you have these fantasies and derive some sort of pleasure or enjoyment from them, that itself weights your description toward Evil; you are indulging in fantasies of clearly evil acts and gaining something from doing so. Maybe it's outweighed by other factors,

However, there's another aspect here: the difference between an in-world observer saying someone is evil and the GM or player saying a character under their control is evil. For an in-world observer, they would have to mostly rely on acts as the indicators since most beings can't flawlessly observe another being's internal thoughts and motivations. However, as the actual controller of a character, no matter how much effort you put into RP considerations, you know/decide the answers to any given hypothetical. To use the example of the prisoner dreaming of revenge, the controller of that character knows the answer to "Will he try to make those dreams reality upon his release?". Put another way, you are a perfect version of the precogs in Minority Report: you know whether the character will actually commit the crime before that opportunity comes. And if the answer is Yes, I would describe that character as Evil even if all he can physically do for now is sit in a prison cell. Even beyond that, you know whether the character has a sincere desire to act on those fantasies regardless of ever gaining the ability to do so. Because of this, again, I would say you could determine whether such a character is Evil even if he will never be able to commit an evil act.

It's not a claim that the world is deterministic, just that you have perfect knowledge of a creature and what it would do in any given situation. This gets back to a much, much older question of whether a deity knowing in advance what actions you will take means you do not have free will, to which my answer is no because knowing your choice is not the same thing as making that choice for you.

[MR_Anderson]

Sounds like there is a little of the old question, "Is alignment prescriptive or descriptive?", in there. I happen to come down firmly on the side of the latter, such that a being is evil because it does evil acts, as opposed to saying a being does evil acts because it is evil (granted, there is some wonkiness in there thanks to aligned planes and the denizens thereof, but that topic is full of wonk). Now, "descriptive of what?" is a valid question as well. Some people say acts alone, so you can have whatever horrific fantasies you want so long as you never act on them. I'm not sure that is feasible outside of GM fiat saying "The minds of people in this world work completely differently than those of real-world humans", but I suppose you could do it. My thinking is that, if you have these fantasies and derive some sort of pleasure or enjoyment from them, that itself weights your description toward Evil; you are indulging in fantasies of clearly evil acts and gaining something from doing so. Maybe it's outweighed by other factors,

I think you are conflating Good vs Evil with Chaotic vs Lawful.

Recently there was a discussion about the difference between Devils and Demons. Both are Evil, but one is ruled through emotion and the other through willful thought.


However, there's another aspect here: the difference between an in-world observer saying someone is evil and the GM or player saying a character under their control is evil. For an in-world observer, they would have to mostly rely on acts as the indicators since most beings can't flawlessly observe another being's internal thoughts and motivations. However, as the actual controller of a character, no matter how much effort you put into RP considerations, you know/decide the answers to any given hypothetical. To use the example of the prisoner dreaming of revenge, the controller of that character knows the answer to "Will he try to make those dreams reality upon his release?". Put another way, you are a perfect version of the precogs in Minority Report: you know whether the character will actually commit the crime before that opportunity comes. And if the answer is Yes, I would describe that character as Evil even if all he can physically do for now is sit in a prison cell. Even beyond that, you know whether the character has a sincere desire to act on those fantasies regardless of ever gaining the ability to do so. Because of this, again, I would say you could determine whether such a character is Evil even if he will never be able to commit an evil act.

Again Minority Report had two different types of colored balls that would come down, one representing the emotional act (the more common) and the one of willful planning (being extremely rare). The movie made a good point that while some would act on what was perceived, some may not, and for that reason those found guilty were released.


It's not a claim that the world is deterministic, just that you have perfect knowledge of a creature and what it would do in any given situation. This gets back to a much, much older question of whether a deity knowing in advance what actions you will take means you do not have free will, to which my answer is no because knowing your choice is not the same thing as making that choice for you.

I agree with you view of free will, because knowing and controlling are two different things.

However, thoughts are an extension of who a character is. Lets discuss two examples.

Two characters have the same thoughts of killing someone because they want their riches or do not like the individual. One acts on it and the other does not. This is not Good vs Evil, it is CE vs LE.

Two other characters have the same thought of killing an extremely evil king. In parallel universes each of these characters kill this king (LE). This could be characters of CG vs CE, where the CG character did it because he thought it would bring freedom and a chance for Goodness to grow, and the CE character did it because he was looking to increase his power in the kingdom. The same act is not what determines Good or Evil in this case.

So we can conclude action does not define Good or Evil, it might define Chaos or Law, but even then it stems from who the character is, making it actually Prescriptive. An evil being will do evil acts, because it is evil.

[Cortillaen]

I think you are conflating Good vs Evil with Chaotic vs Lawful.

Recently there was a discussion about the difference between Devils and Demons. Both are Evil, but one is ruled through emotion and the other through willful thought.
I disagree that I'm conflating anything because it seems silly to suggest that fantasizing vs acting is somehow intrinsic to the Chaos/Law axis. Chaotic creatures are, if anything, more prone to acting on their desires than Lawful ones, given that planning, restraint, and delayed gratification are more typically Lawful traits. In the prisoner example, though, I don't think anything given suggests his tendencies toward either side of that axis.

I also can't see the Chaos/Law axis being about emotion or lack thereof. Instead, I see it being about impulsivity vs deliberation, instinct vs reason. Everyone has fundamentally emotional motivations underlying their choices. Just ask "Why?" enough times and this becomes obvious. I doubt Demons or Devils are any different; the instant a Devil has a desire, that's emotional no matter how orderly his actions to fulfil that desire. The Demon just wears its heart on its sleeve (sometimes literally), while the Devil obfuscates its desires under layers of protocol and planning.


Again Minority Report had two different types of colored balls that would come down, one representing the emotional act (the more common) and the one of willful planning (being extremely rare). The movie made a good point that while some would act on what was perceived, some may not, and for that reason those found guilty were released.
I think that point was actually supposed to be that people made aware of their future can then change it, basically saying that knowing a future necessarily invalidates it and spawns a new future that may or may not resemble the old one. That and the element I was pointing out, the impossibility of humans having perfect knowledge of future events (incidentally present and past ones as well) and the flawed judgements passed because of imperfect knowledge. I don't recall the impulsive vs planned element having much to do with that, but it's safe to say you don't plan a murder without an emotional reason behind it. Again, emotion isn't the opposite of planning; impulsivity is. The emotion can be exactly the same in both cases.


I agree with you view of free will, because knowing and controlling are two different things.

However, thoughts are an extension of who a character is. Lets discuss two examples.

Two characters have the same thoughts of killing someone because they want their riches or do not like the individual. One acts on it and the other does not. This is not Good vs Evil, it is CE vs LE.
I disagree. It could be Good vs Evil (depends on the reasons the one character decided not to go through with it), and the killer could absolutely be either of CE or LE. I don't get the association of Chaos with action and Law with inaction here. Nobody would claim Devils' Lawfulness stops them from acting on their Evil desires. They just don't act impulsively. In fact, it's a common trope that the methodical, deliberate planners are far more dangerous in the long run than the rampaging hordes. The former are hard to anticipate and are perfectly willing to just outlive great obstacles while the latter tend to be very straightforward, impatient, and prone to wasting strength against strength.


Two other characters have the same thought of killing an extremely evil king. In parallel universes each of these characters kill this king (LE). This could be characters of CG vs CE, where the CG character did it because he thought it would bring freedom and a chance for Goodness to grow, and the CE character did it because he was looking to increase his power in the kingdom. The same act is not what determines Good or Evil in this case.

So we can conclude action does not define Good or Evil, it might define Chaos or Law, but even then it stems from who the character is, making it actually Prescriptive. An evil being will do evil acts, because it is evil.
LG and LE characters could just as easily carry out such a killing for almost identical reasons: LG may do so because he believes there is no way within the system to overthrow the king (or that doing so will take too much time during which further suffering will be spread), and LE may do so because it improves his position in the kingdom. I think all this shows is that practically any character can have justifying circumstances for killing an Evil target.

It does touch on another point I believe, though: Good vs Evil is about motivations and objectives. Chaos vs Law is about methods.* I think this may actually lie behind a lot of the problems people have with the classic 2-axis alignment system: it is presented as mapping motivations on 2 axes but actually maps motivations on 1 axis and "style of pursuing motivations" on the other. Splitting the axes up entirely (and maybe adding a couple more) might actually make it more comprehensible. This is also why some pure-Law and pure-Chaos creatures seem just nonsensical: some of them embody methods without objectives. About as common is giving them an objective like perpetuating and spreading their method, which seems almost a sort of meta-objective, like busywork when you lack a real goal. It's a fallback option because almost everything else has Good or Evil baked in, and these things are supposed to be Neutral on that axis. That's not to say there are no interesting and well-developed LN or CN groups, just that it's hard to make them compelling without drifting towards G or E. They have to have a mixed set of G and E objectives that roughly balance out or exist in the realm of Blue vs Orange Morality (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BlueAndOrangeMorality). I really enjoy the rare case of the latter done well.

*This is why I have problems with the Golarion setting's Hellknights (or at least with GMs who run them as if the surface description were true). The claim is that they treat Law as an end unto itself, but that doesn't really work. Law is a method, not an objective. Nobody maintains a structure or the status quo for the sake of the structure or status quo; they do so because they believe those things serve some purpose they hold. In addition, I hold that most attempts at amorality (as is often claimed of the Hellknights) devolve into Evil by default, which the Hellknights largely seem to bear out.

[MR_Anderson]

Really the first thing that needs to take place is a discussion on what constitutes who someone is, and where their alignment comes from.

I firmly believe that someone has a soul and is made up of Mind, Will, and Emotions (Tied to Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma respectfully). This is why when you use Magic Jar these attributes travel with the soul. Therefore someone’s Mind, Will, and Emotions make up who they are and thus the character’s alignment.

I have in the past explained how Wisdom is closely tied to the alignment of Law axis. While not every alignment is tied to an axis of the alignment system, really only Wisdom shows a connection to being the bases for Lawful tendencies. Wisdom is the basis for Monk, Paladins, and controlling things in the planes of chaos; more so the classes that cannot be Lawful do not utilize Wisdom as a defining attribute.

This is a stretch, but there is a connection and I wanted just to show that Lawfulness is somewhat tied to Wisdom and someone’s willpower, and I would argue that so too would the Good or Evil, as Goodness is not tied to Intelligence or Charisma, nor is Evilness.

This means we’ll pin an Alignment to someone’s Will. This is the same check to overcome Charm and Suggestion from an Emotional Drive, as well as to overcome Illusion and other deceptions of the Logical Mind. So, if we go back to Mind, Will, and Emotions then Will becomes the check on acting out when emotion tries to provoke you to act, and Will is also the check when your mind tries to deceive you. Will also determines whether or not you succumb to Evil thoughts if you are Good and start having a drive towards revenge as in your prison example.


I disagree that I'm conflating anything because it seems silly to suggest that fantasizing vs acting is somehow intrinsic to the Chaos/Law axis. Chaotic creatures are, if anything, more prone to acting on their desires than Lawful ones, given that planning, restraint, and delayed gratification are more typically Lawful traits. In the prisoner example, though, I don't think anything given suggests his tendencies toward either side of that axis.

Allowing a character’s mind to dwell on Evil thoughts when they are a Good character would corrupt them, as clearly the Will to stop those Evil thoughts would be lacking and instead the Will has become to embrace Evil thoughts in the mind, instead rejecting Evil thoughts. Therefore, by refusing to stop fantasizing about something Evil, a character could be come Evil, because the Will to enjoy or accept the fantasy has become the character.

It is the evil being that will do evil acts scenario from before, as who the individual is has already become Evil.



I also can't see the Chaos/Law axis being about emotion or lack thereof. Instead, I see it being about impulsivity vs deliberation, instinct vs reason. Everyone has fundamentally emotional motivations underlying their choices. Just ask "Why?" enough times and this becomes obvious. I doubt Demons or Devils are any different; the instant a Devil has a desire, that's emotional no matter how orderly his actions to fulfil that desire. The Demon just wears its heart on its sleeve (sometimes literally), while the Devil obfuscates its desires under layers of protocol and planning.

Yes, but Willpower (Wisdom) places emotion and the mind in check allowing a sense of order to one’s thoughts. A devil can have a desire (emotion), but it will seek to achieve that desire through the sense order, rarely breaking form. Law isn’t about being void of emotion, it is about not letting emotion to disrupt what ever order that is being followed.


I think that point was actually supposed to be that people made aware of their future can then change it, basically saying that knowing a future necessarily invalidates it and spawns a new future that may or may not resemble the old one. That and the element I was pointing out, the impossibility of humans having perfect knowledge of future events (incidentally present and past ones as well) and the flawed judgements passed because of imperfect knowledge. I don't recall the impulsive vs planned element having much to do with that, but it's safe to say you don't plan a murder without an emotional reason behind it. Again, emotion isn't the opposite of planning; impulsivity is. The emotion can be exactly the same in both cases.

Overwhelming emotion to drive someone to impulse, like a Barbarian Rage is Chaotic, where as a Monk that learns to have a Still Mind is Lawful.



I disagree. It could be Good vs Evil (depends on the reasons the one character decided not to go through with it), and the killer could absolutely be either of CE or LE. I don't get the association of Chaos with action and Law with inaction here. Nobody would claim Devils' Lawfulness stops them from acting on their Evil desires. They just don't act impulsively. In fact, it's a common trope that the methodical, deliberate planners are far more dangerous in the long run than the rampaging hordes. The former are hard to anticipate and are perfectly willing to just outlive great obstacles while the latter tend to be very straightforward, impatient, and prone to wasting strength against strength.

I gave you the reason in the example, Greed or Hate are the driving forces. Maybe I should have said Desires instead of Thoughts to make it more clear, but it is CE vs LE. As for LE being more dangerous than CE, that is relative to the power, but I would tend to agree, as if I play evil, it is LE.



LG and LE characters could just as easily carry out such a killing for almost identical reasons: LG may do so because he believes there is no way within the system to overthrow the king (or that doing so will take too much time during which further suffering will be spread), and LE may do so because it improves his position in the kingdom. I think all this shows is that practically any character can have justifying circumstances for killing an Evil target.

A LG character would not just overthrow another Lawful Ruler, even if LE, unless there was additional cause. Other than that, yes the characters could have been CG, NG, CN, N, CE, and NE. The point of the example was to demonstrate that acting or one’s actions don’t determine the alignment, as in this example the same action was take by opposite sides of the Good/Evil axis.

The two examples were to show you:

1 - that taking action is does not determine which side of the Good/Evil axis a character is on.

2 - that the same action could be both Good or Evil depending upon intent.

These examples were to break the thought that taking action was required to determine alignment and that Alignment is not descriptive.

[Segev]

It is interesting to examine just how common the phrase "at minimal cost to you" comes up when discussing this topic. I'm not saying it isn't understandable; I think we all do agree that refusing to do some trivial thing that costs you next to nothing to save an innocent's life that is in immediate and obvious danger with the solution equally immediate and obvious is morally questionable. (I could be wrong, but I definitely sense a broad consensus, here.) However, it always hinges on that "costs you next to nothing" or similar phrase. If you had to sacrifice your own life to save that of another, we would probably mostly agree that choosing to do so is a good act, but I doubt we'd generally agree that it is evil to refrain from doing so. Obviously, "your own life" is not "minimal cost." There's certainly no duty to let your heart by transplanted to another just because they'll die without it (since you, too, will die without it).

So, what really constitutes "minimal cost to you?" You have an oasis in a desert, and a man dying of thirst drags himself up to it. You give him some water because it costs you only a bit of exertion and some time dealing with another human being to do so, and you'd feel really bad if you just let him die out there. The consensus seems to be that to do less might be evil, not neutral.

How much greater would the cost have to get before considering NOT helping him was neutral, rather than evil? Is the risk that he might be a bandit who would repay your kindness with theft or murder enough? How serious must that risk be? Is the frequency with which travelers dying of thirst dragging themselves to your oasis a factor, and if so, at what point does it become such? Is the fact that you have an oasis enough to mean you owe it to anybody you see collapse to go rescue them, no matter how often it happens? How tired do you have to be before "no, I just can't go drag him back here" is neutral rather than evil?

Then, there's the other side of the coin. Just how much benefit must accrue to the beneficiary through your action before it is required you perform the action for their sake, lest you be "evil through inaction?" We're setting up extremes, here: they'll die of you don't." Is that the limit? What if they'll just be in great pain? Are you evil for refusing to take action to prevent somebody from losing a limb, if you know they'll survive? What if you refuse to prevent a beating that you easily could stop, because you know the victim will live? What about preventing a theft; are you evil for not taking the time to look over and glare at a thief to let him know you see him when he's about to snatch a little old lady's purse?

If a group of people are absolutely convinced that anybody who doesn't bear the holy symbol of their faith is going to bring the wrath and destruction of their god upon their entire town, are you evil for refusing to wear that holy symbol in their town, even if you're absolutely positive they're wrong about it? What if wearing that symbol is offensive to you and your culture?

Instead of wearing a symbol, what if their belief is that refusing to eat a particular food in a daily ceremony will bring down that wrath? Are you evil for deciding you are too busy for the ceremony? What if the food is absolutely repulsive to you, are you evil for refusing to eat it, then, or for faking it and hoping they don't notice?

Are you evil for inflicting the terror they will feel at knowing somebody is violating this stricture, by refusing to adhere to it?

Just how much harm - physical or emotional - must be the consequence to others of your inaction for your inaction to be evil, not neutral? Just how much cost to you must accrue in taking action for inaction to be neutral, and not evil? At what point do those who expect/demand your action become the ones who are committing evil for their requirements that you act as they demand, in terms of cost to you? At what point do they stop being evil for making these demands or even compelling your action if their need is great enough?

[Silly Name]

IMPORTANT NOTE: I'll be talking mostly about D&D morality, which doesn't always coincide with real life or my own stances on Good and Evil.


IHow much greater would the cost have to get before considering NOT helping him was neutral, rather than evil? Is the risk that he might be a bandit who would repay your kindness with theft or murder enough? How serious must that risk be? Is the frequency with which travelers dying of thirst dragging themselves to your oasis a factor, and if so, at what point does it become such? Is the fact that you have an oasis enough to mean you owe it to anybody you see collapse to go rescue them, no matter how often it happens? How tired do you have to be before "no, I just can't go drag him back here" is neutral rather than evil?

On the topic of "what if he then tries to kill me? what if it is a trap?", I'd say that those doubts should be reasonable. In potency, every person your meet while crossing the street could pull a knife and stab you, but we don't live our lives in fear of this happening, because there's a pretty slim chance (same reason why we don't routinely check up if a meteor is colliding with Earth - while lethal, it's not a day-to-day worry). If you have serious reasons to suspect that the thirsty man is actually a bandit trying to lure you, you are "allowed" to try to understand if that's true.

But still, Good in D&D can also consist of putting yourself at risk, to go above and beyond what's expected of you. An extremely Good D&D character may still risk her life by helping the possible bandit because her conscience won't allow her to ignore his pleas.

Which is really the point here: there are some cases where inaction may be Evil or Neutral, depending on the specifics, but Good doesn't care about what cost it has to pay. A Good character will sacrifice their life for another's - or at least, that's what their alignment leans towards. Obligatory comment about mortals in D&D not being always a perfect incarnation of their alignments.


Then, there's the other side of the coin. Just how much benefit must accrue to the beneficiary through your action before it is required you perform the action for their sake, lest you be "evil through inaction?" We're setting up extremes, here: they'll die of you don't." Is that the limit? What if they'll just be in great pain? Are you evil for refusing to take action to prevent somebody from losing a limb, if you know they'll survive? What if you refuse to prevent a beating that you easily could stop, because you know the victim will live? What about preventing a theft; are you evil for not taking the time to look over and glare at a thief to let him know you see him when he's about to snatch a little old lady's purse?

I'd argue that in D&D-land, knowing that you're allowing Evil to pass while being in a position to prevent that Evil counts as Evil in itself. Remember that Good is defined as "altruism, respect for life, and a concern for the dignity of sentient beings". Emphasis on that last part - dignity of sentient beings. A Good character will intervene to stop a bully who's taunting another child, just as much as they would intervene to save another person's bodily integrity.

Also, another obligatory caveat about feasibility of those actions. There exist extenuating circumstances that may prevent a Good character from intervening, such as having to ride fast towards a spot where evil wizards are convening to summon an army of demons. This character probably doesn't have the time to lecture the kids of the village they're just passing through, and they can be excused for putting the survival of the world before a stern talking-to to a bully.


If a group of people are absolutely convinced that anybody who doesn't bear the holy symbol of their faith is going to bring the wrath and destruction of their god upon their entire town, are you evil for refusing to wear that holy symbol in their town, even if you're absolutely positive they're wrong about it? What if wearing that symbol is offensive to you and your culture?

Instead of wearing a symbol, what if their belief is that refusing to eat a particular food in a daily ceremony will bring down that wrath? Are you evil for deciding you are too busy for the ceremony? What if the food is absolutely repulsive to you, are you evil for refusing to eat it, then, or for faking it and hoping they don't notice?

Are you evil for inflicting the terror they will feel at knowing somebody is violating this stricture, by refusing to adhere to it?

This seems to be beyond the scope of alignment, if I'm being honest.


Just how much harm - physical or emotional - must be the consequence to others of your inaction for your inaction to be evil, not neutral? Just how much cost to you must accrue in taking action for inaction to be neutral, and not evil? At what point do those who expect/demand your action become the ones who are committing evil for their requirements that you act as they demand, in terms of cost to you? At what point do they stop being evil for making these demands or even compelling your action if their need is great enough?

Well, the answer is that there's no easy formula to calculate all this sort of stuff. Morality isn't a mathematical problem that can be solved by general formulas, you need to evaluate every situation, and the "tipping point" may be clear in one scenario but foggy in another.

[MR_Anderson]

What you said...

Very well said.

However, I don’t think we want to discuss where a line is as there would never be agreement, so that should be left to the DM. Yet there is a line, and that line does mean failing to act could result in falling to Evil.

[liquidformat]

Due to an ongoing debate in another thread, the question arose how a Good aligned creature might come to change in alignment all the way to Evil without:

a) taking any Evil action.
b) being subject to any alignment-altering magic.

Falling is generally much easier than redemption, so seems to me there should be routes towards this, but can't point to anything atm.

As has already been said choosing to take no action is in itself taking an action. However, the reason you take an action is as important as the action you take.


If a Good Character saw an individual fall overboard and just ignored it.

I am not so certain this is always an evil act. Let's for example look at a group of fishermen on a boat in a horrid storm you as captain are navigating the boat and you see one of your crewmen swept overboard and immediately disappear in the waves. What are you supposed to do? You can't see the crewman, don't know where he went, and most likely trying to turn the ship around and search for the crewman will capsize the boat potentially killing everyone else, even just diverting your thoughts to the crewman who fell overboard to lead to capsizing the boat because you aren't paying enough attention to navigating the treacherous storm. Are you supposed to stop everything and most likely kill everyone on the boat to try and save someone who is most likely already dead? Is ignoring this person and focusing on saving everyone else on the boat evil? Is it evil to ignore the safety of everyone else and try and find and maybe save this one person?

In my opinion the captain ignoring the crewman who fell overboard and focusing on ensure the boat doesn't capsize is the 'good' aligned option.

Another example I am traveling through the desert already very dehydrated and have been rationing my water in hopes of making my way to an oasis. I have enough water even rationing for maybe another day I am guessing it will take 2 to 3 more days to get to the oasis. I come across someone else who is on the brink of death from dehydration, me giving them water might prolong their life a little longer but will surely doom us both to death. Is giving them water and ensuring we both die a 'good act'?

This one is a bit of a grey area, ignoring the person is not an evil action and I wouldn't this would be an action to make you fall to neutral, but it also doesn't seem like a 'good' action either. At the same time I don't think giving the person your water and ensuring that you both die is a 'good' action either, and if it is then it falls under 'stupid good'.

[Zanos]

I don't agree that doing nothing can be Evil. I agree that not helping can make you Neutral, but it can't make you Evil. Walking away from a situation should always be a valid Neutral option.

I think it's also important to remember that a lot of cosmologies will consign Evil souls to one of the Lower planes upon your death. It would be really, really weird to be sentenced to an eternity of torture just for thinking Evil thoughts, and I am pretty sure the 3.5 alignment books outline that you must do something Evil to be Evil.

[liquidformat]

I don't agree that doing nothing can be Evil. I agree that not helping can make you Neutral, but it can't make you Evil. Walking away from a situation should always be a valid Neutral option.

I think it's also important to remember that a lot of cosmologies will consign Evil souls to one of the Lower planes upon your death. It would be really, really weird to be sentenced to an eternity of torture just for thinking Evil thoughts, and I am pretty sure the 3.5 alignment books outline that you must do something Evil to be Evil.

As was stated with Baalzebul already just thinking 'evilly' is enough, at least if you are an outsider. Which honestly makes sense for outsiders but not humanoids since humanoids aren't inherently a specific alignment.

On the other hand I think there are situations where not doing anything could inherently be an evil act. For example a very powerful character perfectly capable of stopping something like genocide of a people with little threat to themselves but not doing so because those people don't 'concern' said powerful character. For instance lets say a large band of evil orcs are heading to a village with the goal of killing everyone present and taking away all the wealth of the village. A good aligned wizard who has setup their mage tower close by through divination knows the attack is imminent but chooses to do nothing because their magical research is more important.

Another one from a book I am reading a prince is visiting a boarder city for an inspection and happens to be on the walls of the city. At that time a unit of soldiers out to scout returns with an enemy force hot on their heels. Most of the scouting unit is dead only the leader and a few others are left and there are around 100 enemy soldiers chasing them, the city has a standing army of 10k soldiers. A stray arrow comes close to the prince on the wall so he instructs the army of the city not to engage the enemy and only defend if the city itself is assaulted because of extreme fear for his life. As such the army in the city simply watch as the scouting party pleading for the gate to be open and to be saved are slaughtered.

In both of these cases the choice to do nothing is inherently evil.

[Silly Name]

I am not so certain this is always an evil act. Let's for example look at a group of fishermen on a boat in a horrid storm you as captain are navigating the boat and you see one of your crewmen swept overboard and immediately disappear in the waves. What are you supposed to do? You can't see the crewman, don't know where he went, and most likely trying to turn the ship around and search for the crewman will capsize the boat potentially killing everyone else, even just diverting your thoughts to the crewman who fell overboard to lead to capsizing the boat because you aren't paying enough attention to navigating the treacherous storm. Are you supposed to stop everything and most likely kill everyone on the boat to try and save someone who is most likely already dead? Is ignoring this person and focusing on saving everyone else on the boat evil? Is it evil to ignore the safety of everyone else and try and find and maybe save this one person?

In my opinion the captain ignoring the crewman who fell overboard and focusing on ensure the boat doesn't capsize is the 'good' aligned option.

What's important here is that the captain has authority, and therefore responsibility, for all the people on the boat. As you point out, he can't risk the whole boat for one man, because while (D&D) Good dictates he should be willing to risk his own life for someone else's, he can't risk the lives of others.

This is an example of the extenuating circumstances I talked about above. The captain is forced to make a decision, and chooses the option that saves the most lives, like how the paladin riding out to stop a doomsday ritual can't stop to help solve a murder.

[Zanos]

As was stated with Baalzebul already just thinking 'evilly' is enough, at least if you are an outsider. Which honestly makes sense for outsiders but not humanoids since humanoids aren't inherently a specific alignment.
I agree that outsiders are different, yes.


On the other hand I think there are situations where not doing anything could inherently be an evil act. For example a very powerful character perfectly capable of stopping something like genocide of a people with little threat to themselves but not doing so because those people don't 'concern' said powerful character. For instance lets say a large band of evil orcs are heading to a village with the goal of killing everyone present and taking away all the wealth of the village. A good aligned wizard who has setup their mage tower close by through divination knows the attack is imminent but chooses to do nothing because their magical research is more important.
That's perfectly Neutral. Plenty of very powerful Neutral archmages explicitly isolate themselves from the world at large to study. A 'Good' wizard who does that would probably become Neutral, but not Evil. The Neutral do-nothing archmage is practically it's own Archetype. It would be trivial for him to stop any number of bad things from happening; he just doesn't care about the problems of normal folks.

The idea that someone could do nothing but study magic in their tower, never engaging with society at large, and eventually become Evil is incredibly bizarre to me.


Another one from a book I am reading a prince is visiting a boarder city for an inspection and happens to be on the walls of the city. At that time a unit of soldiers out to scout returns with an enemy force hot on their heels. Most of the scouting unit is dead only the leader and a few others are left and there are around 100 enemy soldiers chasing them, the city has a standing army of 10k soldiers. A stray arrow comes close to the prince on the wall so he instructs the army of the city not to engage the enemy and only defend if the city itself is assaulted because of extreme fear for his life. As such the army in the city simply watch as the scouting party pleading for the gate to be open and to be saved are slaughtered.
I think this one is a little bit different because the Prince's social role has some amount of built in obligation to help people. In this case the Prince isn't doing nothing, he's commanding people who probably would otherwise help to not do so.

[liquidformat]

What's important here is that the captain has authority, and therefore responsibility, for all the people on the boat. As you point out, he can't risk the whole boat for one man, because while (D&D) Good dictates he should be willing to risk his own life for someone else's, he can't risk the lives of others.

This is an example of the extenuating circumstances I talked about above. The captain is forced to make a decision, and chooses the option that saves the most lives, like how the paladin riding out to stop a doomsday ritual can't stop to help solve a murder.

The interesting question is if you aren't the captain but another person on the same boat and see someone go overboard, let's even say you are a level 3 paladin have no ranks in swim and because you are a paladin you are wearing full plate armor for whatever reason. So if you go in the water you are ensuring you will die and have no way to find the overboard person much less saving them. You are currently tied to the mast to make sure you aren't going to be washed off the deck. Is doing nothing an evil act, will doing nothing make you fall?

If were to free yourself and go into the water you will die and be of no help in saving the person who fell overboard. You yelling and causing a commotion is likely to either have no effect or even worse could cause more people to die as you are distracting the crew from managing the ship which could cause it to capsize. In the end it seems like doing nothing is still the 'good alignment' answer here.

[liquidformat]

That's perfectly Neutral. Plenty of very powerful Neutral archmages explicitly isolate themselves from the world at large to study. A 'Good' wizard who does that would probably become Neutral, but not Evil. The Neutral do-nothing archmage is practically it's own Archetype. It would be trivial for him to stop any number of bad things from happening; he just doesn't care about the problems of normal folks.

The idea that someone could do nothing but study magic in their tower, never engaging with society at large, and eventually become Evil is incredibly bizarre to me.

Let's take it up a notch, same exact scenario and this time the townsfolk flee to the mage tower and bang on the door and plead to be let in. All the good aligned wizard would have to do is let them into the tower not even engage the orcs and they would be saved. But he instead chooses to continue his research. I don't think that is a neutral act.


I think this one is a little bit different because the Prince's social role has some amount of built in obligation to help people. In this case the Prince isn't doing nothing, he's commanding people who probably would otherwise help to not do so.
The Prince is technically doing nothing but I get what you mean. However, I think this might also be an evil act for the soldiers who choose to do nothing at the Prince's orders.

[icefractal]

The interesting question is if you aren't the captain but another person on the same boat and see someone go overboard, let's even say you are a level 3 paladin have no ranks in swim and because you are a paladin you are wearing full plate armor for whatever reason. So if you go in the water you are ensuring you will die and have no way to find the overboard person much less saving them. You are currently tied to the mast to make sure you aren't going to be washed off the deck. Is doing nothing an evil act, will doing nothing make you fall?Different ethical systems will vary, but from a utilitarian POV, "you" (the Paladin in this case) are also a person, and sacrificing yourself is equally good/bad as sacrificing someone else. So jumping in with the expectation that you'll both die would be a bad thing. And either rescuing the sailor at the cost of your own life or staying on deck while he drowns would both be neutral (a neutral act, meaning no change in alignment, not "you are now neutral").

[awa]

lets go even more extreme you are a precog sitting down reading a book and you see a small child about to pull down a pot full of boiling water down on its head you know the child will suffer grievously for a few month before eventually dying from the injuries; you also know that nearly any action on your part something as simple as word or gesture can prevent this event, but you choose to ignore it.

What if the inaction came because you think the parents should be punished for their inattentiveness?
What if you did nothing because you are a sadist and enjoy children being hurt?

[Silly Name]

lets go even more extreme you are a precog sitting down reading a book and you see a small child about to pull down a pot full of boiling water down on its head you know the child will suffer grievously for a few month before eventually dying from the injuries; you also know that nearly any action on your part something as simple as word or gesture can prevent this event, but you choose to ignore it.

I don't see what's so difficult about the idea that if you can stop suffering with ease, then you have a moral duty to do so. We can come up with various hypothetical scenarios until the end of time, the answer won't change unless you include details that would make it impossible or pointless to intervene.


What if the inaction came because you think the parents should be punished for their inattentiveness?

If you think "I'll let your innocent child die so that you may learn a lesson", you're Evil.


What if you did nothing because you are a sadist and enjoy children being hurt?

Then you're Evil. Doesn't seem that hard to me.

[Zanos]

I don't see what's so difficult about the idea that if you can stop suffering with ease, then you have a moral duty to do so. We can come up with various hypothetical scenarios until the end of time, the answer won't change unless you include details that would make it impossible or pointless to intervene.
If you're Good, maybe. This is basically saying that you can't be both powerful and Neutral, which is untrue.

[Silly Name]

If you're Good, maybe. This is basically saying that you can't be both powerful and Neutral, which is untrue.

In D&D land, you're right, and I'll leave it at that. I should have worded it more clearly, but the point is that you can't be Good and let suffering happen while you're in a position to stop it.

[icefractal]

I'll say that in terms of ... idk, common usage? That proximity does seem to make a difference. Like, if you see someone drowning, you could easily throw them a rope, and you don't, that seems "evil" to me - and I think a lot of people would agree. On the other hand, "you live within a short drive of the docks, but you never go out patrolling them to prevent people drowning" doesn't; it doesn't even seem like something that would prevent being "good".

I'm not sure of what logically justifies that, so I'll need to think further, but it does seem like a common metric.

[awa]

The one complication I had when thinking about this subject is what about neutral outsiders. Obviously a modron stays neutral if all it does is follow rules even if those rules hurt someone, and a salad stays neutral even if its randomness causes unintended harm to someone. So why were they different then the wizard and it came to me that the difference is they aren't people. Real people have a connection to the community and the people around them obligations implied and explicit and so on.

Thinking about this made me more hesitant about my opinions of the wizard in the tower, because the classic neutral wizard in the tower lacks any connection or obligation to the people around him. The classic high level hermit mage really has more in common with the modron than the peasant farmer. That leads me to a dilemma. My next thought is, would it change things if the wizard had built his tower with the pepoles labor on the peoples land under the promise that he would protect them? On the other hand isn't breaking promises more a matter of law and chaos then good and evil. For myself came to the eventual conclusion that breaking that obligation in such a way was both evil and chaotic but I am less confident in my prior opinion that obviously the wizard in the tower is evil.

Part of the complication is we often think of it as two sides of a coin evil or good with neutral just being in the middle but at least for D&D that's not quite right, neutral is its own thing not merely the absence of good or evil.

In the end I still belive that inaction can be evil but the WHY of the inaction is very important.

[Eldonauran]

In D&D land, you're right, and I'll leave it at that. I should have worded it more clearly, but the point is that you can't be Good and let suffering happen while you're in a position to stop it.
This is a very true statement for the D&D universe. Good REQUIRES that you are willing to sacrifice to help others. Scalding your hand to save a child. Giving away your only lunch for the day to someone who needs it more. Just having a benevolent thought doesn't cut it. Helping out when it costs you nothing doesn't cut it, even Evil people can do that.

[MR_Anderson]

If a Good Character saw an individual fall overboard and just ignored it, it would be an evil act.


I am not so certain this is always an evil act. Let's for example look at a group of fishermen on a boat in a horrid storm you as captain are navigating the boat and you see one of your crewmen swept overboard and immediately disappear in the waves. What are you supposed to do? You can't see the crewman, don't know where he went, and most likely trying to turn the ship around and search for the crewman will capsize the boat potentially killing everyone else, even just diverting your thoughts to the crewman who fell overboard to lead to capsizing the boat because you aren't paying enough attention to navigating the treacherous storm. Are you supposed to stop everything and most likely kill everyone on the boat to try and save someone who is most likely already dead? Is ignoring this person and focusing on saving everyone else on the boat evil? Is it evil to ignore the safety of everyone else and try and find and maybe save this one person?

Let me clear this up...

I am a Sailor, 20+ years. When you see someone fall overboard, you report it, and we briefed people riding for more than a day to also know certain expectations.

Additionally, the individual was not explained as being the captain, and even then a Captain would still report it because there are ship’s logs, and crew count need to be maintained.

Furthermore, I did not include circumstances that would exclude acting normally. No rough seas, no in the middle of battle with the enemy, just normal circumstances.

Everyone wants to read into examples.

As for not knowing that you should report someone falling overboard...as a sailor, I ‘ll take that blame, I guess you landlubbers don’t get sea adventures.

[Calthropstu]

Let me clear this up...

I am a Sailor, 20+ years. When you see someone fall overboard, you report it, and we briefed people riding for more than a day to also know certain expectations.

Additionally, the individual was not explained as being the captain, and even then a Captain would still report it because there are ship’s logs, and crew count need to be maintained.

Furthermore, I did not include circumstances that would exclude acting normally. No rough seas, no in the middle of battle with the enemy, just normal circumstances.

Everyone wants to read into examples.

As for not knowing that you should report someone falling overboard...as a sailor, I ‘ll take that blame, I guess you landlubbers don’t get sea adventures.

Former Navy here. If you see someone go overboard and don't report it, you are pretty much on the ultimate ****list if anyone finds out. I wouldn't be surprised to see a captains mast held with a dereliction of duty charge. Possibly even manslaughter. They do not mess around on that.

Considering I saw someone get fined, demoted, derated, lose his sign-on bonus and lose a promotion all for stealing a pen from the NEX, I shudder to think what would happen here.

[Telonius]

On the question of "how much inconvenience" - I know this isn't any sort of an official thing, but the shorthand I use to determine Good/Neutral/Evil (and Lawful/Neutral/Chaotic) is - how far out of your way are you going to go, to act in a Good (or Evil, or whatever) way? If what you do only respects life when there's no threat to you, or when it's easy or convenient, that's not Good. That's Neutral. The border of "how much are you willing to stick your neck out" is pretty fuzzy. But if you make a habit of doing Good when it's hard, it's pretty likely that you're going to have a Good alignment. On the flip side of that, if you aren't willing to do Good even when it's as easy and convenient as can be, that's a pretty good indication that you're (at absolute best) on the border of Neutral and Evil. And depending on how egregious the consequences, that could very easily flip into Evil. That's what I was trying to get at, with the "oasis guy" example.

[MR_Anderson]

On the question of "how much inconvenience" - I know this isn't any sort of an official thing, but the shorthand I use to determine Good/Neutral/Evil (and Lawful/Neutral/Chaotic) is - how far out of your way are you going to go, to act in a Good (or Evil, or whatever) way? If what you do only respects life when there's no threat to you, or when it's easy or convenient, that's not Good. That's Neutral. The border of "how much are you willing to stick your neck out" is pretty fuzzy. But if you make a habit of doing Good when it's hard, it's pretty likely that you're going to have a Good alignment. On the flip side of that, if you aren't willing to do Good even when it's as easy and convenient as can be, that's a pretty good indication that you're (at absolute best) on the border of Neutral and Evil. And depending on how egregious the consequences, that could very easily flip into Evil. That's what I was trying to get at, with the "oasis guy" example.

Given so many possible scenarios, that question is absolutely best left to be resolved between a DM and the Players.

I will say I had a recent discussion with a player about this, as I would like to see his character transition to Good or at least leaning against evil from a neutral sense and at some point fulfill a story arch.

The party was leaving slaves to be supposedly killed by the master using them as labor to build a secret base, secrets tend to be kept in the grave much better, was the reasoning and slaves were cheap.

The party being all Neutral on the G/E axis, and full spectrum on the L/C axis, they tried to buy or free certain slaves, but when ultimately it proved fruitless, they were extra kind to them, but left them behind. This wasn’t an evil act in my opinion, they had no power to overcome the master and his personal guard, and they were hired under an authority that they could not cause bad reputation.

I actually felt there actions leaned towards a good tendency, even though they left them behind to be killed, it built a foundation that if someday they have the power, they might do something for good.

Even had there been any Good Aligned characters in the party, I would not have penalized them for leaving the slaves to die. Sometimes circumstances are beyond the means for a character to act, and sometimes the best choice is to comfort the suffering, and to wait for a day where you have the power to make a difference, thus increasing your power to spread Goodness.

[Malphegor]

There may be situations where inaction is the Evil option.

This is why I like to play warforged paladins. The Laws of Robotics kinda slot in weird ways really nicely with D&D oathbreaking, it just depends on how you define ‘human’ for the sake of porting em to D&D, and how much you want your paladin to still be able to injure evildoers

[Herbert_W]

I don't see what's so difficult about the idea that if you can stop suffering with ease, then you have a moral duty to do so. We can come up with various hypothetical scenarios until the end of time, the answer won't change unless you include details that would make it impossible or pointless to intervene.


If you're Good, maybe. This is basically saying that you can't be both powerful and Neutral, which is untrue.

This conversation has just breezed past another thing that could make the question a lot more complicated: what if there's a large number of people who need help? If helping any one person would involve minimal cost to you - and then helping another person is another minimal cost, and helping another is another, and so on and so forth - but the sum and total cost of helping everyone would be huge, what are you required to do?

There was a hypothetical case raised where a wizard chose to ignore an invasion in order to focus on their research. This was presented as a singular decision to ignore the plight of a single village for the sake of some amount of work - but I'd like to alter the scenario a bit. Our wizard is powerful enough that they could always find a village in peril somewhere in the world and save them. Every time they do anything else, there's at least one village out there that's burning because of their inaction.

There's a sliding scale of possible responses that our wizard could have:


The Good thing to do would be to spend their entire life running around fixing problems. I don't think that we can justify the assertion that anything less than this is Evil though. The "cost" to them each minute would be minor - it's just a minute's worth of easy work for them - but the total "cost" would be that they never get to do anything else which is obviously a huge burden.
Alternatively, our wizard might set aside a certain quota of time that they set aside for personal projects. They might justify this by saying that they need time to relax and/or do their own things in order to stay sane.
Our wizard might spend a limited quota of time and effort helping others, which they believe is "enough."
They might adopt a strict policy of "if it's not my circus, then it's not my monkey" - because they can't save everyone and can't justify any way of choosing who to save, so they default to a policy of non-involvement by process of elimination.
They just don't care and don't lift a finger.
They take satisfaction in the fact that they could help, and choose not to.

I think we can all agree that the first response is Good and the last is Evil. Somewhere down the list, Good switches over to Neutral, and further down to Evil. We might not agree on where the transitions lie, but I think we can agree that there is a way to be powerful and neutral even if we don't completely agree on what it is, right?

[MR_Anderson]

There was a hypothetical case raised where a wizard chose to ignore an invasion in order to focus on their research. This was presented as a singular decision to ignore the plight of a single village for the sake of some amount of work - but I'd like to alter the scenario a bit. Our wizard is powerful enough that they could always find a village in peril somewhere in the world and save them. Every time they do anything else, there's at least one village out there that's burning because of their inaction.

I think that is why Heroes are heroes of their community. They are part of a society, and they do what is good for their society. Some may take up the cause of seeking out and destroying evil, but that mission isn’t required of a Lawful Good person normally, but we would expect it of a Paladin who seeks to destroy evil as a norm.

As Heroes become more legendary (increase in levels) their influence and community impact would certainly expand. Maybe people seek them out requesting assistance from evil somewhere just beyond their community, or a community that has ties to His/Her community.

A Good character should seek to stop evil, but sometimes just being an example of good can meet requirements for doing good.

For instance, a LG ruler of a county finds out that another country is killing certain segments of their population for unjust cause, Does that LG ruler have the duty to take his country to war to save those people? This has played out multiple times throughout history.

I don’t think a good person must always be seeking to find the next evil to defeat, because so often defeating the evil in front of you so you can just live your life is what a good person wants.

[Bohandas]

Doing the right thing for the wrong reason can make a difference. Intent matters. Like it officially canonically matters because fighting fiends makes celestials more good but fiends more evil because of their different reasons for doing it.

[Malphegor]

Book of Exalted Deeds may be relevant here as Exalted characters are encouraged to look at the big picture. You don’t just kill goblins, you figure out why the goblin army were desiring to do evil and you prevent the root causes.

Seems to be that 3.5 makes a distinction between Good Intended Actions and ‘Good That Actually Should Result In Meaningful Change In The Long Term’, though it’s inconsistent.

[Silly Name]

Book of Exalted Deeds may be relevant here as Exalted characters are encouraged to look at the big picture. You don’t just kill goblins, you figure out why the goblin army were desiring to do evil and you prevent the root causes.

Seems to be that 3.5 makes a distinction between Good Intended Actions and ‘Good That Actually Should Result In Meaningful Change In The Long Term’, though it’s inconsistent.

It makes a distinction between Exalted (characters of the highest moral principles, shining beacons of light and good who devote themselves to making the world a better place, veritable saints) and "just" Good (altruistic, tries to do the right thing, respects life and its dignity).

The nice old lady who bakes cookies for all the village's children and tells them stories, and who helps you out if you fall on hard times and always has a kind word for everyone is Good. But she's not Exalted.

The gallant knight who fights against the evil wizard because it's the right thing to do is Good. But he may not be Exalted.

The cleric who spends her every waking moment seeking out evil to destroy it, lessening suffering however she can (be it through healing the sick or comforting the grieving, donating her money to the poor and so on), all the while not caring about her own desires past the wish to see a better world... She's Exalted, or very close to it. She feels a responsibility to use her powers for the good of others, and will not stop as long as she can go on.

Notice that both the knight and the cleric's actions can have lasting results that make the world a better place. But only the cleric is Exalted, because her dedication to Good is so much more ardent than the knight's.

It's the same distinction between degrees of Evil. The greedy lord who overtaxes his subjects even if leaves them malnourished is Evil, but he's not as Evil as the lich conspiring to summon the tarrasque and destroy the world.

[RexDart]

Depends if “ignoring a cry for help from a suffering innocent person in need” counts as an evil action according to your DM.

But alignment issues have no winners in the internet. Talk to your DM is the only way through this thicket that I can see.

Heh. I totally agree.

Broadly, I'd say as a philosophical matter, inaction (especially for individuals or groups with great power) is also a choice. {Scrubbed}

But in the real world, people and countries don't have a bit "G" "N" or "E" symbol flashing over their heads, and as a matter of gaming, I have trouble seeing much benefit to modeling this sort of philosophical "backsliding into evil" principle in a role-playing game.

[Bonzai]

Interesting topic. There is no solid line here just a lot of murky area.

Reminds me of a few in game situations. Both happened in the Realms

1. The party is in Thay. They walk by a man abusing his female slave. The paladin has a choice to make. By law, the man has every legal right to treat his slave that way. To interfere, would be to break the law. On the other hand, the man's treatment of the slave woman was cruel and morally wrong, if not out right evil. To do nothing, would be allowing this evil to continue and make him partialy responsible for the continued abuse.

Player solution: The paladin put a stop to it, without causing any lasting harm to the man (subdued him then healed his injuries). He then submitted himself to the law for his actions, and was sentenced to slavery himself. While breaking the law by interfering, he did so to prevent an evil act, and then submitted himself to be held accountable for his actions. This maintained his moral code.

2. A Necromancer from the Cult of the Dragon creates a town near an Iron mine in the North near the Silver Marches. Under his protection the town prospers. Then the Kingdom of Many Arrows arises, and the area is overrun by orbs. The town is swollen with refugees, but the power of the Necromancer keeps them protected. The Harper's learn of his existence and they are quickly defeated, and he even has a few on display in his throne room as husk globes. The party is then sent into address the problem.

They infiltrate the town, and are shocked to find that the Necromancer is beloved by the populace. Though his laws are strict, and punishments severe, he has been their savior from the orc invasion. He has maintained order, and despite everything they have thrived under his care. The party has a tough decision to make. If they remove the Necromancer, then the towns people will be defenseless and most likely slaughtered. Though lawful, the Necromancer is unequivocally evil. He is growing his power base, and has far greater ambitions and schemes at play. If left unchecked, it could spell disaster for the region and possibly the Realms themselves.

Player solution: The players left him in place... for now. However they did discover and thwart one of his greater schemes. The Necromancer had stockpiled dragon corpses from the year of Rogue Dragons to use as back up bodies for a drcolitch. They found his stock pile and destroyed them. This setback significantly slowed down his plans and gave them time to find a permanent solution. They were hoping the Orc kingdom would fall, and they would be free to act. That never took place.

[MR_Anderson]

A Necromancer from the Cult of the Dragon creates a town near an Iron mine in the North near the Silver Marches. Under his protection the town prospers. Then the Kingdom of Many Arrows arises, and the area is overrun by orbs. The town is swollen with refugees, but the power of the Necromancer keeps them protected. The Harper's learn of his existence and they are quickly defeated, and he even has a few on display in his throne room as husk globes. The party is then sent into address the problem.

They infiltrate the town, and are shocked to find that the Necromancer is beloved by the populace. Though his laws are strict, and punishments severe, he has been their savior from the orc invasion. He has maintained order, and despite everything they have thrived under his care. The party has a tough decision to make. If they remove the Necromancer, then the towns people will be defenseless and most likely slaughtered. Though lawful, the Necromancer is unequivocally evil. He is growing his power base, and has far greater ambitions and schemes at play. If left unchecked, it could spell disaster for the region and possibly the Realms themselves.

Player solution: The players left him in place... for now. However they did discover and thwart one of his greater schemes. The Necromancer had stockpiled dragon corpses from the year of Rogue Dragons to use as back up bodies for a drcolitch. They found his stock pile and destroyed them. This setback significantly slowed down his plans and gave them time to find a permanent solution. They were hoping the Orc kingdom would fall, and they would be free to act. That never took place.

This is a perfect example of why even a LG party would not always rush to remove a LE ruler.

[Herbert_W]

Due to an ongoing debate in another thread, the question arose how a Good aligned creature might come to change in alignment all the way to Evil without:

a) taking any Evil action.
b) being subject to any alignment-altering magic.

Falling is generally much easier than redemption, so seems to me there should be routes towards this, but can't point to anything atm.

It's just occurred to me that becoming a vampire should qualify. Becoming a vampire isn't an Evil action because it isn't an action - it's a thing that is done to someone, usually against their will. It's supernatural rather than magical, so it meets the criteria that you set.

It does feel like it's effectively alignment-altering magic even though it's technically nonmagical, so it might not fit the spirit of the question that you were asking though.

[Feantar]

Eh, I guess in extreme circumstances(which seem extremely implausible - trolley problem implausible). Avoid taking a costless action to prevent a great evil. Here, evil mostly means "bad" not "malevolent".

Example: You encounter a situation in which a large group of <something you consider extremely innocent> are being tortured by a naturally occuring spell-like phenomenon (as in, no one has done this, you cross no-one by interfering with it). You know, and believe so as well, that by snapping your fingers you can end this phenomenon, and you believe that you can do this without any consequences.

You walk away.

Yeah, it needs to be something insanely extreme; even in the above example, if you actually did not believe there wouldn't be any consequences, it might not be considered evil. The more plausible alternative is in the same principle but repeated. Something like:

Every day I pass by the town bridge. I notice that there's a deep crack in the paving; it is positioned in such a way that it is not easily noticeable. Every few weeks someone falls to their death by tripping on it. I have weekly dinners with the person who maintains the bridge. He is a generally good person - he just hasn't noticed the flaw. I could just point the crack out so he could fix it. I have made the connection clearly in my mind and I am confident and convinced that this is the problem. I never mention the crack. People Keep Dying.

That one can be more gradual. Still, it is...not very likely.

[liquidformat]

It's just occurred to me that becoming a vampire should qualify. Becoming a vampire isn't an Evil action because it isn't an action - it's a thing that is done to someone, usually against their will. It's supernatural rather than magical, so it meets the criteria that you set.

It does feel like it's effectively alignment-altering magic even though it's technically nonmagical, so it might not fit the spirit of the question that you were asking though.

Becoming a Werewolf and other similar 'evil' lycanthropes has similar effects.


1. The party is in Thay. They walk by a man abusing his female slave. The paladin has a choice to make. By law, the man has every legal right to treat his slave that way. To interfere, would be to break the law. On the other hand, the man's treatment of the slave woman was cruel and morally wrong, if not out right evil. To do nothing, would be allowing this evil to continue and make him partialy responsible for the continued abuse.

Player solution: The paladin put a stop to it, without causing any lasting harm to the man (subdued him then healed his injuries). He then submitted himself to the law for his actions, and was sentenced to slavery himself. While breaking the law by interfering, he did so to prevent an evil act, and then submitted himself to be held accountable for his actions. This maintained his moral code.

The 'Lawful' in the paladin class is because they have a code of conduct which they live their life based on rather than following the laws of the land for this very reason. I don't think Lawful alignment and Laws should be equated as the same thing for this very reason. A monk and paladin are lawful because they live their life by a very specific code not by the laws of a land they just happen to visit. For example an elven paladin who enters an evil orc nation with a law stating all elves should be killed on sight is under no obligation to commit suicide upon entering said country because she is lawful and an elf, and to claim she should is just silly. The code of conduct for a paladin specifies 'respect legitimate authority', I guess the real issue is should a LG paladin ever consider an evil ruler legitimate, typically I think the answer should always be no.

[Silly Name]

Furthermore, trying to define Lawful as "obeys the law of the land they're currently in" is an easy road to absolutely incoherent characterisation. You'd have characters whose allegiances, morals and standards could be changed by taking them to a sufficiently legally different place from the one they're in.

[Eldonauran]

The 'Lawful' in the paladin class is because they have a code of conduct which they live their life based on rather than following the laws of the land for this very reason. I don't think Lawful alignment and Laws should be equated as the same thing for this very reason. A monk and paladin are lawful because they live their life by a very specific code not by the laws of a land they just happen to visit. For example an elven paladin who enters an evil orc nation with a law stating all elves should be killed on sight is under no obligation to commit suicide upon entering said country because she is lawful and an elf, and to claim she should is just silly. The code of conduct for a paladin specifies 'respect legitimate authority', I guess the real issue is should a LG paladin ever consider an evil ruler legitimate, typically I think the answer should always be no.Yeah, I had some pretty strong opinions about the levels of Lawful STUPID displayed by the Paladin in that situation but I chose not to vocalize them ... specifically. In short, I'd have let the authorities try to hunt me down for knocking that abuser on his ass. The Paladin Code of Conduct has room in it for acting in a non-Lawful manner, so much as it doesn't grossly violate his oath (which is often seen as overly repetitive actions for no truly justifiable reason). It even has room for non-Good actions. Submitting to the authorities and becoming a slave? Yeah, no.

[icefractal]

Paladins have to follow a set of Lawful principles, they don't have to follow the law of every nation that exists - which wouldn't even be possible because those laws sometimes conflict.

It could be considered more Lawful to approach in an up-front way - confront the man, demand he release her from slavery, only proceed to force in the likely event he refuses.

As opposed to, say, pretending to befriend the man, going to a tavern with him, then slipping some sleeping potion in his drink and leaving with the former slave while he's unconscious.

[D+1]

how a Good aligned creature might come to change in alignment all the way to Evil without:

a) taking any Evil action.
b) being subject to any alignment-altering magic.Given a) and b), you can't.

The question that desperately needs to be asked, however, is why would you WANT to have this happen? WTH would you want an alignment system that permits this? Even if you CAN figure out a way to twist alignment rules to let it take place the thing you then need to do is fix it so it CANNOT HAPPEN because there is no benefit to then letting that kind of flaw in the system be exploited just to blow up in your face.

Daring to play a paladin under the wrong DM.And this is WHY you don't want it to be possible.

It's just occurred to me that becoming a vampire should qualify. Becoming a vampire isn't an Evil action because it isn't an action - it's a thing that is done to someone, usually against their will. It's supernatural rather than magical, so it meets the criteria that you set.

It does feel like it's effectively alignment-altering magic even though it's technically nonmagical, so it might not fit the spirit of the question that you were asking though.I don't see that it matters whether it's a "magically" achieved change or somehow to be considered a "NOT-magical" change - unless that specifically is the distinction you want to draw? That a change from good to evil can take place non-magically, because becoming a vampire is a non-magical effect? That wasn't my impression that that is what was being asked.

I understood the OP question to be whether a good-aligned PC, without overt external influence, and also without overt choices on their part, can as a consequence of their lack of deliberate actions nonetheless become evil. And the answer is no, they can't. Actions determine alignment, not the other way around. Only if actively choosing to NOT ACT is to be considered evil can a character perform no physically evil acts and become evil, but that is the point - that the choice to take no action would be an EVIL choice. If the choosing itself is the evil action, even if the result of the evil action is to deliberately not physically act, then the evil choice of non-action is itself the evil action being taken.

Alignment in D&D for purposes of Player Character alignment, must be determined by actions. The alternative is that it is instead your alignment that dictates your actions and then no PC - or player - has free will to have their character act in any way other than what their characters alignment dictates FOR them. When it is actions that determine alignment THEN players and their PC's are free to have the PC's choose actions that violate what their alignment would otherwise suggest they should do, and thus CHANGE alignments as a consequence of their choices.

But you can't just spontaneously turn from good to evil without cause for it having taken place - either deliberate evil actions by the PC or external influences forcing the change against the characters will.

[Jowgen]

I understood the OP question to be whether a good-aligned PC, without overt external influence, and also without overt choices on their part, can as a consequence of their lack of deliberate actions nonetheless become evil.

Overt external influence would be permissable, so long as it was non-magical.

For example, if the inverse of the BoED redemption rules existed for Evil, that would qualify. Have someone just talk at you till you're suddenly Evil.

Overt choices could be permissable, if they somehow didn't invovle actually taking an Evil action.


Unrelated, I don't want to get in the middle of the brilliant discussions that have been taking place, but I feel one factor that doesn't really seem to have been considered just yet is that nature (as opposed to nurture) holds notably more sway over the morality of not just outsiders but mortal creatures as well. Drow are literally born bad, there's a whole Dragon mag article about how they're already murdering each other the instant they can pick up something sharp, and don't get me started on Illithids and their Ilk.

Not saying there is an answer to my OP question in this, but just truck me as odd that race hasn't been mentioned at all when "Always/Usually ALIGNMENT" is commonly featured in racial statblocks.

[Eldonauran]

Unrelated, I don't want to get in the middle of the brilliant discussions that have been taking place, but I feel one factor that doesn't really seem to have been considered just yet is that nature (as opposed to nurture) holds notably more sway over the morality of not just outsiders but mortal creatures as well. Drow are literally born bad, there's a whole Dragon mag article about how they're already murdering each other the instant they can pick up something sharp, and don't get me started on Illithids and their Ilk.

Not saying there is an answer to my OP question in this, but just truck me as odd that race hasn't been mentioned at all when "Always/Usually ALIGNMENT" is commonly featured in racial statblocks.Lolth takes a pretty heavy hand in the goings-on of the Drow race. It would be unlikely that any good aligned spawn would survive into adulthood, without meeting the fate of being turned into a Drider (a process that certainly has an effect on them). The few non-evil Drow that we have seen rise up from the Depths should be more than enough to account for the Always (nearly always) Evil alignment they have.

[liquidformat]

Unrelated, I don't want to get in the middle of the brilliant discussions that have been taking place, but I feel one factor that doesn't really seem to have been considered just yet is that nature (as opposed to nurture) holds notably more sway over the morality of not just outsiders but mortal creatures as well. Drow are literally born bad, there's a whole Dragon mag article about how they're already murdering each other the instant they can pick up something sharp, and don't get me started on Illithids and their Ilk.

I am not sure if it is official or just some third party high jacking of Drow but I remember reading somewhere that Drow always have twins its just that the two twins fight to the death inside the womb and one always kills the other. If that is official then murdering your sibling in the womb pretty well cements the evil alignment in place before a Drow is ever born.


Not saying there is an answer to my OP question in this, but just truck me as odd that race hasn't been mentioned at all when "Always/Usually ALIGNMENT" is commonly featured in racial statblocks.

Lolth takes a pretty heavy hand in the goings-on of the Drow race. It would be unlikely that any good aligned spawn would survive into adulthood, without meeting the fate of being turned into a Drider (a process that certainly has an effect on them). The few non-evil Drow that we have seen rise up from the Depths should be more than enough to account for the Always (nearly always) Evil alignment they have.

The good Drow offshoots, Succubus paladin, and other such non evil examples of otherwise 'always evil' monsters have always rubbed me the wrong way and I find that handling by WotC quite distasteful. Granted there is the redemption rules in BoED and that seems fine if you are getting non evil 'always evil' monsters through magic which forces alignment changes then fine but beyond that just happening to have some dumb drixxt make it out of the drow and going on a holy crusade to thwart evil just annoys me.

If you can have non evil examples of a race then it should be a 'usually evil' race in which case I am fine with 'this one was raised by good people and so isn't evil' but I have always taken 'always evil' to mean their nature is evil and it isn't something that can be nurtured out without getting magic involved.

[Tzardok]

"Often", "Usually", and "Always" in regards to alignment have specific meanings, namely "at least 40% have this alignment", "at least 70%" and "at least 95%". Always isn't without exceptions. And if there are fallen angels (a staple of the genre), why not risen demons? And certainly no one would say that drow are less likely to be redeemed than demons, especially as they have a deity dedicated to "evil is totally lame; let's be good again".

[Zanos]

"Often", "Usually", and "Always" in regards to alignment have specific meanings, namely "at least 40% have this alignment", "at least 70%" and "at least 95%". Always isn't without exceptions. And if there are fallen angels (a staple of the genre), why not risen demons? And certainly no one would say that drow are less likely to be redeemed than demons, especially as they have a deity dedicated to "evil is totally lame; let's be good again".
Because the framing of the Evil/Good dichotomy is one of corruption. For Good to fall to Evil is to slip, for Evil to become Good is to scale a mountain. And even fallen angels in 3.5 are fundamentally changed. Erinyes are Devils, not celestials. A risen demon, if such a thing were possible, would cease to be a demon.

That said I have no problem with Good Drow. Drow are Evil because of significant and persistent interference from a malevolent deity. Even the most well engineered Evil cultures will have exceptions. I'm less cool with Succubus Paladins, and I notice people are only interested in playing non-Evil fiends when the fiends in question are very attractive looking. Nobody wants to play a risen Barbed Devil or Glabrezu. I can't imagine why that is. :smalltongue:

[Eldonauran]

Because the framing of the Evil/Good dichotomy is one of corruption. For Good to fall to Evil is to slip, for Evil to become Good is to scale a mountain. And even fallen angels in 3.5 are fundamentally changed. Erinyes are Devils, not celestials. A risen demon, if such a thing were possible, would cease to be a demon.

That said I have no problem with Good Drow. Drow are Evil because of significant and persistent interference from a malevolent deity. Even the most well engineered Evil cultures will have exceptions. I'm less cool with Succubus Paladins, and I notice people are only interested in playing non-Evil fiends when the fiends in question are very attractive looking. Nobody wants to play a risen Barbed Devil or Glabrezu. I can't imagine why that is. :smalltongue:
Sexy triggers hormones, hormones induce feelings, feelings generally stop less disciplined people from using their reasoning skills, human tendency to justify actions/behavior after emotions have been processed, add them all together and you get!? Oh, the Devil isn't Evil! He's just a misunderstood rebel!

Evil isn't really that hard to understand. :smallwink:

[Segev]

I notice people are only interested in playing non-Evil fiends when the fiends in question are very attractive looking. Nobody wants to play a risen Barbed Devil or Glabrezu. I can't imagine why that is. :smalltongue:


Sexy triggers hormones, hormones induce feelings, feelings generally stop less disciplined people from using their reasoning skills, human tendency to justify actions/behavior after emotions have been processed, add them all together and you get!? Oh, the Devil isn't Evil! He's just a misunderstood rebel!

Evil isn't really that hard to understand. :smallwink:

There's also the tendency in general to want to play attractive characters. No, not everybody does, and I'm sure you could find somebody who would be delighted to play a Risen Bearded Devil. But even people playing orcs and dragonborn tend to play aesthetically pleasing ones, as a general rule. Wanting to play an ugly character for any reason is pretty uncommon. I won't go so far as to say "rare," but definitely not common.

[liquidformat]

Because the framing of the Evil/Good dichotomy is one of corruption. For Good to fall to Evil is to slip, for Evil to become Good is to scale a mountain. And even fallen angels in 3.5 are fundamentally changed. Erinyes are Devils, not celestials. A risen demon, if such a thing were possible, would cease to be a demon.

That said I have no problem with Good Drow. Drow are Evil because of significant and persistent interference from a malevolent deity. Even the most well engineered Evil cultures will have exceptions. I'm less cool with Succubus Paladins, and I notice people are only interested in playing non-Evil fiends when the fiends in question are very attractive looking. Nobody wants to play a risen Barbed Devil or Glabrezu. I can't imagine why that is. :smalltongue:

To be fair I think not wanting to play a Glabrezu or Barbed Devil has more to do with the number of RHD and the fact that they don't have a listed LA than people not wanting to play them. I have played as an imp and chain devil before and found them to be quite fun. The main issue is that most monster races have LAs that are out of step with what they give you.

[Tzardok]

Because the framing of the Evil/Good dichotomy is one of corruption. For Good to fall to Evil is to slip, for Evil to become Good is to scale a mountain.
Oh, I won't say that falling isn't much, much easier. I just hold that rising is not impossible. If it were possible for the most pure of souls to fall, but not for the most heinous souls to rise, that would mean that over a very, very long timeframe Evil would win. If you give it infinitely long time, all good souls would fall or be destroyed, with no one going the other direction.


And even fallen angels in 3.5 are fundamentally changed. Erinyes are Devils, not celestials. A risen demon, if such a thing were possible, would cease to be a demon.


Not all fallen angels are erinyes. Wouldn't make sense for one who fell to Chaotic Evil. :smallwink:

I personally hold that this is a process that takes a bit of time. A risen demon would cease to be a demon, but not necessarily instantly. It could take a few years, or decades, or centuries..., or seconds. Who knows?


There's also the tendency in general to want to play attractive characters. No, not everybody does, and I'm sure you could find somebody who would be delighted to play a Risen Bearded Devil. But even people playing orcs and dragonborn tend to play aesthetically pleasing ones, as a general rule. Wanting to play an ugly character for any reason is pretty uncommon. I won't go so far as to say "rare," but definitely not common.

I once played an especially ugly kobold (dusty grey with blood shot eyes and loose scales everywhere), does that count?

[Eldonauran]

I once played an especially ugly kobold (dusty grey with blood shot eyes and loose scales everywhere), does that count?I am currently playing a venerable Aasimar Barbarian in our Pathfinder game for the Tyrant's Grasp campaign. He might have 16 Charisma, but that is all personality. Don't know if that guy has more wrinkles or scars. Hmm, maybe he is so old his scars have wrinkles?

[Remuko]

I'm less cool with Succubus Paladins, and I notice people are only interested in playing non-Evil fiends when the fiends in question are very attractive looking. Nobody wants to play a risen Barbed Devil or Glabrezu. I can't imagine why that is. :smalltongue:

i mean i dont play anything that i dont think is attractive in some way regardless. theres plenty of standard races i wont play cuz of aesthetic, so of course this extends to when i wanna play weird stuff like dragons and demons and devils.