I Love Alignments

[Tanarii]

Question: ...what?

A) i never said they would be, B) i was using him as an example of what an "evil" character would be like. C) I'm not... entirely sure what you're trying to say here?:smallconfused:
A) Then why are you using them as an example?
B) On what basis?
C) Being a Disney antagonist is the only basis one could classify this character as "evil". They wouldn't qualify under D&D evil from any edition I know of, so I assumed that was the basis.

I'm using the term antagonist, because villain seems like an inappropriate word to use in this case.

[Draconi Redfir]

A) Then why are you using them as an example?
B) On what basis?
C) Being a Disney antagonist is the only basis one could classify this character as "evil". They wouldn't qualify under D&D evil from any edition I know of, so I assumed that was the basis.

I'm using the term antagonist, because villain seems like an inappropriate word to use in this case.

A) Because that's how examples work. you take thing A and equate them to thing B in order to make an explanation. That's what the whole "Fold a paper in half and poke a hole through it to explain how wormholes work" thing is about.
B) On the basis that he is Against general society but can still be a fair and agreeable person under certain conditions. He's not trying to take over the world or bring flowers to the land or anything like that, he's just a guy living on his farm and protecting his property with violent means that most people might disagree with. evil, but not Evil.
C. it was not. See B.

[Tanarii]

evil, but not Evil.
So a personal real world definition of evil, not related to alignments?

Edit: Even if I believed in real world good/evil, I'd have trouble placing this guy in the category of evil.

[OldTrees1]

A) Then why are you using them as an example?
B) On what basis?
C) Being a Disney antagonist is the only basis one could classify this character as "evil". They wouldn't qualify under D&D evil from any edition I know of, so I assumed that was the basis.

I'm using the term antagonist, because villain seems like an inappropriate word to use in this case.

1) The missing context might be useful to the discussion:
Anti-villains (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AntiVillain) are also villains.
"a character with heroic goals, personality traits, and/or virtues who is ultimately the villain."

The video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17nsLMYVVx0) Draconi Redfir mentioned in passing describes the hunter antagonist from The Fox and the Hound as an anti villain.

2) The example was about "I have no choice, I must act this way" not being about alignment.
The point of the example was some alignment systems are not prescriptive. They used the mildly evil Hunter as an example by showcasing when the Hunter had the choice to relent from the personal vendetta.

Although the point of the post is a bit superfluous considering the person they were replying to (NichG) agreed before the post.

3) Lowercase "evil"
I suspect this time the lowercase indicates milder severity.


Sidenotes (not worth turning into subthreads):
The movie focuses on the evils of revenge.
This thread is about alignment, not exclusively D&D nor D&D RAW.
D&D 3.5 does indicate there is an alignment difference between justice and vengeance.

[Draconi Redfir]

So a personal real world definition of evil, not related to alignments?

Edit: Even if I believed in real world good/evil, I'd have trouble placing this guy in the category of evil.

i don't think I'm saying any of that, it kind of sounds like you're trying to say "Don't put non-D&D characters onto the alignment square chart" or something? Can't say i understand that but i feel like it's not super relevant.


I'm mainly trying to say here is "You can be evil and still work with and cooperate with neutral and good people. Just because you're evil doesn't mean you're Evil, you can still be an okay and agreeable person, you just have some different views on society then most people. If you want an example of what this might look like, Amos Slade, the hunter from "The Fox and the Hound" could be a good case-study of this, as well as potentially any other anti-villains you may encounter in fiction. Evil and evil are different things. Evil is like Palpatine or Sauron, wanting to destroy or rule over everything. evil is more like Amos Slade, who is just against or otherwise disagrees with some aspect of society in general."

I'm not saying "Amos Slade is this alignment", I'm saying "If you want an example of this alignment, i think Amos Slade fits the general definition".



*snip*


Also all of this ^ Thank you for putting this into words i couldn't.

[Tanarii]

I'm not saying "Amos Slade is this alignment", I'm saying "If you want an example of this alignment, i think Amos Slade fits the general definition".
Okay. In that case, I wholeheartedly disagree. But because retroactively assigning alignments to fictional character doesn't work well even generally, I will phrase my disagreement as: I could play a large number of neutral characters to behave something quite like Amos Slade but can't see myself ever playing even a small-e-evil character to behave something like Amos Slade. The character doesn't display any behavior I would consider to fit with the typical but not consistent associated behaviors for the evil alignments, so I'd find it unlikely that using those behaviors as motivations I'd ever end up at something like character.

[OldTrees1]

Okay. In that case, I wholeheartedly disagree. But because retroactively assigning alignments to fictional character doesn't work well even generally, I will phrase my disagreement as: I could play a large number of neutral characters to behave something quite like Amos Slade but can't see myself ever playing even a small-e-evil character to behave something like Amos Slade. The character doesn't display any behavior I would consider to fit with the typical but not consistent associated behaviors for the evil alignments, so I'd find it unlikely that using those behaviors as motivations I'd ever end up at something like character.

From what I understand of your motivational alignment system, this makes sense and is not surprising.


It has been a while since I watched The Fox and the Hound, but what I remember matches the video's premise that Amos Slade is an Anti-Villain. Such a character is generally defined by when typically heroic behaviors & traits result in villainous behavior. The main consistent associated behavior for evil alignment would be the treatment of the Fox and later Revenge (misplaced to boot) against the Fox. However even then Amos does reconsider and relent eventually. So under your alignment system I would expect neutral motivational alignment would be the closest to producing a character like Amos. (I would also assume most Anti Villains to borrow associated behaviors from both the good & neutral lists despite their villainy).

[Pauly]

Re: Evil characters in an otherwise good party.
Generally I think it’s a bad idea, but there are some examples of situations where it can work.

The Shadow/Solomon Kane. Both of these characters would set off a Paladin’s detect evil like a Christmas tree. However despite their evil nature both characters they are driven to seek redemption and are committed to doing good to atone for their pasts.
The Punisher/Dexter. Both are fighting evil with evil.
Harry Flashman. As long as having the party succeed saves his skin he’ll whatever it takes to survive. The instant the balance shifts to selling out the party though … You wouldn’t want Harry in your long term campaign, but he could be very useful in a one shot.

[Witty Username]

Re: Evil characters in an otherwise good party.
Generally I think it’s a bad idea, but there are some examples of situations where it can work.

The Shadow/Solomon Kane. Both of these characters would set off a Paladin’s detect evil like a Christmas tree. However despite their evil nature both characters they are driven to seek redemption and are committed to doing good to atone for their pasts.
The Punisher/Dexter. Both are fighting evil with evil.
Harry Flashman. As long as having the party succeed saves his skin he’ll whatever it takes to survive. The instant the balance shifts to selling out the party though … You wouldn’t want Harry in your long term campaign, but he could be very useful in a one shot.

I would add the penitent, a character that is evil in the now but has begun to drift in the direction of good. Evil may take the form of vindictiveness, cynicism, or uncontrolled impulse, but the cause is just (or at least benign). The idea would be that the character would become neutral or good at some point, but not start there.
Catra from She-Ra is on the brain, but Captain Cold and Heat Wave from DC Legends of Tomorrow, or debatably Estinien from FF14 also fit.

That may also be a situation for GM adjudication being a positive, as the character's shifting alignment may be better handled by dialog than a personal take of the player.

Also, the weapon, a PC that is under control of the party by force, but are effective in a way the party needs to maintain the alliance. Suicide Squad archetypes, it could invite too much party conflict for some groups but it is definitely fun when everyone is on board.

[Satinavian]

Catra from She-Ra is on the brain.You can go significantly further than Catra. Even Shadow Weaver from the same franchise would work.

[KorvinStarmast]

Ban evil players, not evil characters.
Those two sets overlap somewhat. :smallwink:

1) "a character with heroic goals, personality traits, and/or virtues who is ultimately the villain." Using a Hunter as a villain requires an anti-humancentric attitude or frame of reference. Hunting is normal human behavior particularly in the pre modern era that most D&D settings are positioned as.
The example was about "I have no choice, I must act this way" not being about alignment. It's about a potentially troublesome player.

Re: Evil characters in an otherwise good party.
Generally I think it’s a bad idea
Yes, with rare exceptions in the hands of skilled players.

[OldTrees1]

Using a Hunter as a villain requires an anti-humancentric attitude or frame of reference.
Off topic. This is not about a generic "Hunter" in their role as a hunter. The fact we refer to them as "the hunter" is merely convenience for those, like myself, that did not learn their name decades ago.

The video was examining the hunter from The Fox and the Hound that happens to fit the anti-villain trope. Considering their antagonistic role is a cautionary tale about revenge, I don't think we need to abandon the humancentric frame of reference to see the anti-villainy.

If we did abandon the humancentric frame of reference and think about the consequences of the animals being people but not recognized as people by hunters, then it would be too easy to draw parallels between hunters and Mind Flayers.



The example was about "I have no choice, I must act this way" not being about alignment.
It's about a potentially troublesome player.
Yes

Well, technically Amos was used as a counter example. Amos demonstrated they had a choice. This demonstrates the "I have no choice, I must act this way" is about a potentially troublesome player and not inherently about alignment.

However both the speaker and the listener already agreed before the post was made. Nitpicking the precise wording of the post clarifying the timeline is a bit unecessary?

[Satinavian]

Yes, with rare exceptions in the hands of skilled players.Some bare minimum of player skill is needed, sure.

But honestly, i wouldn't want to play anything with a player who is not even able to play an evil character in a good group without causing issues.

[Draconi Redfir]

However both the speaker and the listener already agreed before the post was made. Nitpicking the precise wording of the post clarifying the timeline is a bit unecessary?

Yeah, i was more trying to add to the discussion rather then argue with the person i was agreeing with. Posting my comment about the hunter in a separate paragraph was intended to show that it was unrelated to the sentence above it, sorry if that didn't come out clearer. I just saw the video shortly after arguing a case for "Lowercase-e evil is different from uppercase-E Evil" and thought "This would make a good addition to that."

[KorvinStarmast]

The Fox and the Hound A crap film; I was subjected to the entire library of Disney films on VHS as my kids grew up in the 90's.

[gbaji]

Some bare minimum of player skill is needed, sure.

But honestly, i wouldn't want to play anything with a player who is not even able to play an evil character in a good group without causing issues.

To be fair. Correctly played, they should "cause issues", but the issues should be positive RP opportunities, not pure disruption for disruptions sake. Unfortunately, many players do assume that if their character is "evil" that automatically means they are an antagonist to the rest of the party and will play it that way. But there are a lot of ways an evil character can fit into a party, work with them, care about them, and bleed with/for them, while still having other evil things they do. The party rogue? Takes jobs as an assassin when they're not off adventuring with the party. The party wizard? Experiments with necromancy and demonology on the side (and maybe secretly collects "parts" during the adventure, cause why not?). The party ranger? Is actually part of a human trafficking ring that uses hidden locations in the outlands as transport depots. The party fighter? Is secretly in the employ of the evil baron guy over there, and uses adventuring as a cover to gather information on other lands, and maybe influence things to his masters benefit.

There's a ton of motivation for even evil characters to work with an adventuring party, as long as the party itself isn't going directly after them or something they are connected to. And even then, things can become "interesting". You just have to have players who get the whole "we're all trying to have fun here" concept of a gaming table and it works out just fine. It's entirely possible for PCs to have ulterior motivations or plans that don't at all conflict with the actions of the adventuring party they are working with. Quite easy actually. And even when they do, there are ways to play this out that don't devolve directly into PvP conflict.

Er. I suppose it bears mentioning that this *also* requires a GM that will allow this to work as well. I've played with GMs who, unfortunately, swing wildly in opposite directions on this. Some will encourage conflict between the party members if there is any perceived alignment conflict. So these GMs will force scenarios in which the evil characters evilness will require them to take action against the party in some way, basically setting up the evil PCs player to have to do harmful things to the rest of the party and keep those actions secret to facilitate this (basically taking "the side" of the evil character against the party). I've also seen the flip side where the GM doesn't disallow evil characters, but acts in extreme passive aggressive ways towards them. I played once with a GM who literally could not allow any PC to keep any secret from any other PC in the game, and went to sometime ludicrous lengths to ensure that any such thing would be dramatically revealed, no matter how implausible the conditions. Obviously, this environment makes it impossible to play an actually "evil" character (and was just plain annoying for playing out "harmless secrets" kind of things).


So yeah, it does requires both players and GM be on the same page for this to work properly. Well, unless you actually do want a more cutthroat PvP style game.

[Tanarii]

From what I understand of your motivational alignment system, this makes sense and is not surprising.


It has been a while since I watched The Fox and the Hound, but what I remember matches the video's premise that Amos Slade is an Anti-Villain. Such a character is generally defined by when typically heroic behaviors & traits result in villainous behavior. The main consistent associated behavior for evil alignment would be the treatment of the Fox and later Revenge (misplaced to boot) against the Fox. However even then Amos does reconsider and relent eventually. So under your alignment system I would expect neutral motivational alignment would be the closest to producing a character like Amos. (I would also assume most Anti Villains to borrow associated behaviors from both the good & neutral lists despite their villainy).That, and other non-alignment motivations might easily put them at odds with protagonist, in ways that aren't good. Especially (in 5e personality trait terms) Bonds or Flaws. Or they might put them on the same side as the protagonist.

This holds just as true for Good characters of course.

But if those other motivations result in regular and consistent behavior that lines up with another Alignments typical associated behavior, the player would do well to consider changing their alignment. Occasional conflict between traits and alignment is appropriate and often an awesome thing for a game. But consistent conflict that results in behavior that maps more to a different alignment probably indicates something is out of whack with the motivation for alignment.

[Pauly]

Some bare minimum of player skill is needed, sure.

But honestly, i wouldn't want to play anything with a player who is not even able to play an evil character in a good group without causing issues.

Let’s take a basic example of the players capturing an enemy. The ‘good’ path as agreed to by the rest of the party is to escort the prisoner to jail at considerable inconvenience to the party.

The evil player’s alignment appropriate responses include
- killing the prisoner
- torturing the prisoner for information
- letting the prisoner go for the lolz.
- complain incessantly about how escorting the prisoner is a stupid idea.
- leave the party and try to solo the rest of the mission.

If the evil character just goes along with the party’s plan without causing any disruption the player really isn’t roleplaying evil. Maybe a player might give some post hoc justification about being in deep cover or something, but the reality is that they’ve decided to get along with the rest of the players rather than play their character.

[NichG]

Characters do what they do, and if that leans evil they get an E. A player shouldn't feel obligated to try to enact their character's written or assigned alignment. There can be an alignment associated with a response, but there are no 'appropriate responses' for a character of a given alignment. That's the route that does tend to inevitably lead to problems.

No reason your pro-debtor-slavery character for whom the cruelty is the point should feel obligated to kill a prisoner the party wants to transport.

[OldTrees1]

Let’s take a basic example of the players capturing an enemy. The ‘good’ path as agreed to by the rest of the party is to escort the prisoner to jail at considerable inconvenience to the party.

The evil playerÂ’s alignment appropriate responses include
- killing the prisoner
- torturing the prisoner for information
- letting the prisoner go for the lolz.
- complain incessantly about how escorting the prisoner is a stupid idea.
- leave the party and try to solo the rest of the mission.

If the evil character just goes along with the partyÂ’s plan without causing any disruption the player really isnÂ’t roleplaying evil. Maybe a player might give some post hoc justification about being in deep cover or something, but the reality is that theyÂ’ve decided to get along with the rest of the players rather than play their character.

An evil character can be okay with, or even enthusiastically argue for, the prisoner being escorted to jail.

1) Evil characters can, and often do, make moral judgements. For example they can believe: The law enforcement system is an important foundation of society. Sure sometimes it is inconvenient to do things by the law, but having a strong law enforcement system is worth the inconvenience due to the undesirable behaviors it oppresses. (Hopefully you noticed the authoritarian vibes)

2) Evil characters can have standards. Just because a cruel murderer has standards that they only hunt wild prey, it does not make them non evil. If the prey successfully achieves asylum with the party (becomes captured) then they will be sent to jail.

3) Evil characters can compromise. They can accept prisoners going to jail if they benefit from associating with the party. Up to and including "I don't want the world to be destroyed. That's where I keep all my stuff.".


No. A character that is evil has many appropriate responses to the party wanting to jail a prisoner, including taking the prisoner to jail.

[gbaji]

Let’s take a basic example of the players capturing an enemy. The ‘good’ path as agreed to by the rest of the party is to escort the prisoner to jail at considerable inconvenience to the party.

The evil player’s alignment appropriate responses include
- killing the prisoner
- torturing the prisoner for information
- letting the prisoner go for the lolz.
- complain incessantly about how escorting the prisoner is a stupid idea.
- leave the party and try to solo the rest of the mission.

If the evil character just goes along with the party’s plan without causing any disruption the player really isn’t roleplaying evil. Maybe a player might give some post hoc justification about being in deep cover or something, but the reality is that they’ve decided to get along with the rest of the players rather than play their character.

Disagree 100% Why would the evil character want, much less feel required, to do any of those things? If this is an "enemy", he's an enemy to the evil character too, right (barring some other secret subplot we aren't aware of)? Having the enemy hauled off to jail and therefore out of his hair benefits the evil character in the party just as much as the good ones.

Let's assume that the evil character has some reason he's travelling with the party and adventuring with them. Some common goal/quest/whatever. Evil doesn't mean "impatient" or "stupid". He's not going to jeopardize that just for the thrill of killing someone. Torture? Why? Not every evil character wants or needs or desires to torture people, again, doubly so if that may cause harm to some other larger purpose (again, we're assuming there's a reason he's with the party). Maybe he doesn't care what this guy knows, but just wants him "gone". Certainly, if he had an opportunity to kill the person during the fight, maybe he would take it. Again though, not every "evil" character is a mindless killer or something.

Letting the prisoner go? Why? Again, evil does not mean "stupid". If this is an enemy captured in the course of the adventure, and there's some value to having the person removed from whatever is going on, then he'd just go along with it. Certainly not let him go.

The complaining thing is valid, but irrelevant. Good PCs can RP complaining about things they'd want to do differently as well, and just as frequently. And there's no specific reason to assume, given the situation, that the evil character has any greater idea or objective about what to do with this captured enemy than the "good" idea of "take him to the law". Heck. Maybe there's a reward, and he just wants a piece of that action. Why cook the golden goose? He can work with the goodies, get rewards with less risk, and maybe take out some of his competition along the way. Seems like it's all positives for the evil guy here.

Leave the party and solo the adventure? What? Why? Again, let's start with the base assumption that there is some in-character reason why this person is traveling with the party in the first place, and that this reason didn't magically disappear in the last 5 minutes. That's arbitrary, and frankly has zero to do with being "evil" as being an idiot. A "good" character could just as likely decide the party is delaying their critical mission and go off to do this too. Has nothing to do with alignment at all.

I see evil characters in an adventuring party as going to great lengths not to reveal their nature. They'll be model party members. Work with the team. Always helping out. They're playing the long game. Working the angles. And something had better come along that's really really amazingly awesome (like once in a lifetime, I'm promoted to overlord of the universe level stuff) for them to throw that away. Otherwise, you just have an idiot player playing like an idiot and intentionally disrupting the game.

Which, again, has little to do with the alignment they've chosen for their character. Evil does not mean "antagonist to the party". Evil characters can absolutely engage in activities that align perfectly with the same things good characters are doing. They probably want to go kill orcs and take their stuff just as much. They probably want to delve into that dungeon and get treasure just as much. The areas where the evil alignment may come in are going to be the social interaction stuff. The evil character may want the captured princess to die instead of being rescued (or maybe not, if the person doing the kidnapping is someone he wants to eliminate and ingratiating himself to the king here may help him down the line).

I think when playing an evil character, you have to determine (as with any character) what their goals, objectives, likes, dislikes, quirks, etc are. And yeah, you obviously can't play an evil character that is just going to do random evil things, precisely because that guy would never hook up with a party of "good" characters in the first place. Somewhat by design, any evil character in a party has to be the sort that is hiding and biding his time, and engaging in various "evil things" on his own time, and on the side, when he can safely get away with it.

And those things very rarely actually cause disruption at the table. Even when the are at cross purposes, they will appear to be things "someone else" did, that causes some new problem to solve, or negative situation that affects them, or the area they are in. Evil character secretly kills someone in town for <hopefully good reason>. Party may be aware of this. It may impact them in some way. But it's not a conflict because they don't know the other PC did it. It's just additional background of "things going on around you". Again. Why on earth would the evil PC deliberately pick exactly the actions most likely to get him killed? That's not "evil". That's just "dumb".

[hamishspence]

Evil characters can absolutely engage in activities that align perfectly with the same things good characters are doing. They probably want to go kill orcs and take their stuff just as much. They probably want to delve into that dungeon and get treasure just as much.

If you go by the DMG's "random NPCs with PC class levels" tables and take them as representative of "rival adventuring parties" then 50% of Adventurers are Evil.

[Witty Username]

No. A character that is evil has many appropriate responses to the party wanting to jail a prisoner, including taking the prisoner to jail.

As long as I get paid I'm happy is a simple enough explanation to explain alot of evil character behavior.

Good, Neutral and Evil can fly under the radar if not tested, OOTS had a gag on this pretty early on where no one really knew anyone's alignments for awhile simply because it didn't come up much in the dungeon crawl.

Evil is self serving, but not necessarily at the cost of others when there are better ways.
Good is altruistic, but not at the expense of the self, unless necessary.
Neutral is defined by not fitting clearly into other alignments, so it can be hard to pin down outside of extreme situations.

[Satinavian]

Let’s take a basic example of the players capturing an enemy. The ‘good’ path as agreed to by the rest of the party is to escort the prisoner to jail at considerable inconvenience to the party.
If the party agreed to do something, nearly all evil PCs will keep that agreement. Time to disagree was the prior discussion and if it were really that inconvenient, PCs, evil or not, might have voiced an objection here.

Most things in the list are similar to saying :

"A chaotic character would free the prisoner because freedom is above all"
"A good character would free the prisoner because of pity/because to give them a chance of redemption"

or they were not actually playing chaotic or good.

Well, this is just not how it works.

[Vahnavoi]

You lot are dancing around an issue that was explicitly dealt with by 1st Edition AD&D Player's Handbook, the part where Gygax gives hints and tips for new players for how to play as a party. That part explicitly lays out what kind of Evil and selfish Neutral characters can be expected to fit in a party, and which kind cannot. It also makes the same observation of unco-operative Good and "Good" characters. Differing alignments are an obvious source of conflict between characters, but there is no single alignment that is impossible to work with, nor is co-operation guaranteed by characters having the same one.

The idea that characters of differing alignments can act in ways that perfectly align is still false, though, it is so both in practice and by definition. Any argument of that sort requires equivocation or recasting of alignment differences as something else. Shortly: any case where two characters act in perfectly aligned manner is an argument for those two characters being of the same alignment. Duh. Any case where two characters end up in conflict because their behaviors and values are opposed is an argument for those characters being of different alignments. Also duh. These are actual basics of the system. They are what the plain English word of "alignment" imply even outside D&D context.

Moving on:


It's a player problem - even if its not me thinking that, someone else at the table having that attitude may cause a problem for me via the group. And its not specific to alignment, though alignment often reveals that this sort of attitude exists. I had a player play a character once who basically 'could not let any insult or slight go unpunished, period'. Not in a system with alignments or morality scores or anything like that. Just, this was this player's image of their character (and really it was a bit of a reflection of the player too), and it was so inviolable they basically at one point slaughtered their sister's honor guard because when they flew up at high speed without identifying themselves to approach their sister's ship and made a demand, the crew opened fire rather than immediately capitulating.

Compulsive characters are a popular trope, because they're easy to make distinctive and its easy to have things to do to show the character. Compulsive truth teller, compulsive moralist, compulsive gambler, drug addict character, compulsive rebel, etc. But it can be a trap.

You left out one: Rule-like absolute character traits are popular because they are the easiest way to remember to play a role at all. A lot of reasons why "it can be a trap" is only because some hobbyists are actively hostile to it and other "baby steps" approaches to roleplaying.

The major thing, in context of this thread, is the concept of "the party" as the actual operative unit of a game, instead of players or their characters. That is: the point of the game is for "the party" to do things and thus any uncompromising traits of individual characters that get in the way of "the party" are undesirable.

The funny thing is that this mindset has an alignment in D&D terms, but it is not Good as opposed to Evil. It is Lawful as opposed to Chaotic - organized group versus the individual. A lot of the ideas commonly thrown around about how players and their characters should behave demand that players toe the Party line like it's 1984.

The tragedy is that it's often quite pointlessly fighting an uphill battle. If players want to play uncompromising individual characters, it's possible to just build a roleplaying game on that and the resulting conflict between characters. There's more than one way out of the trap, and at least one of them does not require doing away with what you call "compulsive" characters.


Characters do what they do, and if that leans evil they get an E. A player shouldn't feel obligated to try to enact their character's written or assigned alignment. There can be an alignment associated with a response, but there are no 'appropriate responses' for a character of a given alignment. That's the route that does tend to inevitably lead to problems.

No reason your pro-debtor-slavery character for whom the cruelty is the point should feel obligated to kill a prisoner the party wants to transport.

This dances around the issue of self-motivation and self-prescription. If I am the one who made a character and I am the one who described them as Evil, then I have an emotional self-obligation for them to act Evil. Not doing so means I never actually achieve playing the character I said I would play.

This is not unique to alignment, you can replace "Evil" above with any other descriptive term - for example, if I describe my character as an alcoholic but never touch alcohol during a game, ever, what grounds did I have for that description in the first place? Even more, this kind of incongruity isn't something that's just in my head, it's visible to every other player who understands what the descriptive terms mean.

The issue is compounded by demand for contrast. That is: Good and Evil (as well as Law and Chaos or any other juxtaposing pair) is defined by and made visible through opposition. So if a Good character backs up a plan to do a thing explicitly because it is the right thing to do, then that alone give player of an Evil character a reason to oppose them, because Evil is defined by by backing up the wrong thing to do.

This naturally leads to people playing Evil as impulsive and short-sighted - that is, as "impatient" or "stupid", because in the real world around us there is a widespread conflation between morality and thinking in the long term, or "acting smart". Having reviewed a lot of arguments on the issue, I have to conclude that hobbyists who fight against his instinct are purposelessly tilting at windmills. "Evil" is not rational self-interest. Even in real life, high-functioning psychopaths who can put up a front of being respectable members of society while secretly committing atrocities are a minority rare. Most immoral and amoral people are, by contrast, insufferable and poorly tolerated by others. The groups they form between themselves are often toxic, dysfunctional and kept together by threats and use of violence. The evils they commit frequently are impulsive and lead to long-term detriment of both themselves and others. They actually do the kind of things that would lead to themselves being killed, or jailed, or exiled etc., because they don't think that far ahead or just don't care about the consequences on themselves. Their "whys" are often extremely straightforward and intuitive: why did they do the "dumb" thing? Because it felt good in the moment. Why did they hurt you even if it will hurt them as well later down the line? Because they hate your face and don't give a damn about "later down the line".

Most players play the most realistic "Evil" characters they can when you just allow them to play normally, without thinking or caring too much about the consequences for their fictional characters, nevermind "the party". It just so happens that this natural, banal Evil is not conductive to 100% unproblematic smooth-sailing party play. This is not, however, an "inevitable" problem. It doesn't have to be a problem at all. Again, there's more than one way out of the trap. In this case, the simplest way is for a game master to simply pass the ball to the players themselves and tell the players that if they want their characters to function as a group, each and every one of them must individually play in a way that is conductive to functioning as a group, and they live or die by that. That involves characters punishing each other for breaking conduct, or rewarding each other for jobs well done, so on and so forth, as opposed to a game master babysitting them and trying to make them conform to external expectation of group play above and beyond what the game rules require.

[Satinavian]

I don't really care much about Gygax ideas of alignments. Gygax brought us "nits making lice". Gygax brought us "A paladin can freely dispatch prisoners of Evil alignment that have surrendered and renounced that alignment in favor of Lawful Good. They are then sent on to their reward before they can backslide". And he is also somewhat responsible for alignment languages.

D&D has moved away quite a lot from Gygax' ideas about alignment and is the better for it.



Most players play the most realistic "Evil" characters they can when you just allow them to play normally, without thinking or caring too much about the consequences for their fictional characters, nevermind "the party".
Players with evil characters general don't built a character around the concept of Evil and try to shoehorn them into a party. They build a character for the party and then, when putting down alignment, they look at the 9 options and choose one of the evil ones as the best fit for their existing concept.

[NichG]

You left out one: Rule-like absolute character traits are popular because they are the easiest way to remember to play a role at all. A lot of reasons why "it can be a trap" is only because some hobbyists are actively hostile to it and other "baby steps" approaches to roleplaying.


'It can be a trap' in the sense that you're forcing yourself to commit to follow through with any mistakes you made in conceiving the character and matching it to the game at hand. By viewing your character as 'if they didn't fulfill this compulsion, they would not be that person', you're eschewing agency that could be used to adapt to changing or unexpected circumstances. It's the same kind of trap as 'writing yourself into a corner'. You could have chosen to think of your character in other terms, which would make it easier to see ways around sticking points that emerge.



This dances around the issue of self-motivation and self-prescription. If I am the one who made a character and I am the one who described them as Evil, then I have an emotional self-obligation for them to act Evil. Not doing so means I never actually achieve playing the character I said I would play.

This is not unique to alignment, you can replace "Evil" above with any other descriptive term - for example, if I describe my character as an alcoholic but never touch alcohol during a game, ever, what grounds did I have for that description in the first place? Even more, this kind of incongruity isn't something that's just in my head, it's visible to every other player who understands what the descriptive terms mean.


Basically I'm saying: don't do this. Rather than playing the game as 'I'm going to say what I will do, then do it', just skip the first bit and 'do what you will do'.

[Vahnavoi]

I don't really care much about Gygax ideas of alignments.

Gygax will stop being relevant once people stop recycling concepts defined by Gygax and having problems Gygax already told them how to solve. Not like everything Gygax said should not stop even you from noticing that what he said about the very issue at hand is still applicable.


Players with evil characters general don't built a character around the concept of Evil and try to shoehorn them into a party. They build a character for the party and then, when putting down alignment, they look at the 9 options and choose one of the evil ones as the best fit for their existing concept.

The part you quoted does not actually care about any of that. The claim was that most player play most realistic "Evil" characters when they are allowed to act on impulse without caring too much about the consequences. I made no claim of how people generally go about building "Evil" characters.

---


'It can be a trap' in the sense that you're forcing yourself to commit to follow through with any mistakes you made in conceiving the character and matching it to the game at hand. By viewing your character as 'if they didn't fulfill this compulsion, they would not be that person', you're eschewing agency that could be used to adapt to changing or unexpected circumstances. It's the same kind of trap as 'writing yourself into a corner'. You could have chosen to think of your character in other terms, which would make it easier to see ways around sticking points that emerge.

I don't disagree; if I spot players doing this, I can probably recite from memory a spoof Sartre that ends with telling that player to embrace their radical freedom and do something different.

The trick, though, is that the player arguing 'if they didn't fulfill this compulsion, they would not be that person' is not wrong. Personality is defined by persistent or at least long-term character traits, and by extension, so are roleplaying characters. The only way to play someone who is not you is to have rule-like statements about what their personality is and how they would act in hypothetical situations. For any character, there is a point were shirking from those statements means breaking character, and any reasonable player would acknowledge this means the person of their character has changed, or is changing.

Psychological resistance to changing the person you're playing may work out to nothing more than a sunk costs fallacy, but it's still worth recognizing that the choice is between playing different persons, or roles.


'Basically I'm saying: don't do this. Rather than playing the game as 'I'm going to say what I will do, then do it', just skip the first bit and 'do what you will do'.

You are skipping a step: in order to play someone who is not you, any human will have to think what they do before they do it.

Furthermore, the advice is genuinely quite difficult to follow in any game that begins with character creation. Character creation is fundamentally a player thinking of what they will do and how they will act in a game.

It's possible to avoid voicing any of it aloud, but in a multiplayer game, there's a clear function to communicating such intent. It's about setting expectations and then showing you can actually follow through. You can't achieve that by doing whatever and letting other people worry about it.

[Satinavian]

Gygax will stop being relevant once people stop recycling concepts defined by Gygax and having problems Gygax already told them how to solve. Not like everything Gygax said should not stop even you from noticing that what he said about the very issue at hand is still applicable.If i ever find any advice from Gygax that is actually useful for any of my groups, i might reevaluate him. But so far i really don't consider him an authority for how roleplaying or groups work best.
It is not his fault. We now have many decades of experience and have seen the results of many games doing different things. He didn't.




The part you quoted does not actually care about any of that. The claim was that most player play most realistic "Evil" characters when they are allowed to act on impulse without caring too much about the consequences. I made no claim of how people generally go about building "Evil" characters.I disagree.

Evil is neither about being dumb nor about being impulsive. Nothing in the alignment description hints this way and many of the common evil archetypes (the evil scheemer, or the mastermind, the overlord ) are just the exact opposite.

None of the alignments are linked to intelligence or ability for long term planning (or the lack of it). If anything you might make some weak argument about Chaos being about impulsive, whimful behavior, but surely not Evil.

[Vahnavoi]

You are not disagreeing with what I actually argued, then. You are simply performing the same tilting at windmills I was criticizing. I know the rules decouple cognitive ability (intelligence, wisdom, charisma) from alignment and personality and I know there are fictional archetypes for "smart Evil" characters. None of that debunks what I argued for, because game rules don't define what people see as amoral or immoral behaviour in real life, nor do they define what players can realistically play. Abstract game rules are capable of decoupling character traits that go together in real life, leading to characters that are unrealistic or even unplayable.

It's real life where thinking two steps ahead and having concern for others is considered moral, and short-sighted selfishness is considered immoral, and that reflects in behaviours and choices made by players. It's real life where we see a notable overlap between what is considered immoral, and impulsive behaviour getting people jailed, killed etc.. It's real life where most people have no insight as to what being an "evil genius" or a "mastermind" would be like, but are perfectly capable of acting impulsively to mimic short-sighted pettiness,violence and cruelty.

[Satinavian]

Eh, discussion of real life and morality only gets into banned topics. I won't do that.

This discussion is only about game alignment, not real life morality. And only about fictional people, be it PCs or figures from other media, but never real people.

[Vahnavoi]

The players around a table are real people, and you have to be willing to talk about their real capabilities if you want to argue what they can or cannot realistically play. But, for the record, the same thing happens in fiction and is very visible when talking about D&D fantasy novels in particular. For example, for Dragon Lance characters, we often have official character sheets for the villains, with game mechanically appropriate high scores for Intelligence, Wisdom etc. for Evil Clerics and the like. But then, when you actually go and read the books, the same characters act in short-sighted, petty, cruel and self-sabotaging ways, and don't come off as particularly intelligent or wise.

Rich Burlew effectively made a joke on the same topic in Order of the Stick, with an early strip where Belkar suddenly becomes a better person after having Owl's Wisdom cast on him.

The simplest explanation for both is that in real life, the authors and the audience members see wise and intelligent decisions as moral also, and immorality as both unwise and unintelligent. And that trickles to how they treat characters in D&D fiction, no matter if the rules insist these things are uncorrelated.

You can, probably, find Rich commenting on the strip and this very idea somewhere on these forums.

[Batcathat]

The players around a table are real people, and you have to be willing to talk about their real capabilities if you want to argue what they can or cannot realistically play. But, for the record, the same problem happens in fiction and is very visible when talking about D&D fantasy novels in particular. For example, for Dragon Lance characters, we often have official character sheets for the villains, with game mechanically appropriate high scores for Intelligence, Wisdom etc. for Evil Clerics and the like. But then, when you actually go and read the books, the same characters act in short-sighted, petty, cruel and self-sabotaging ways, and don't come off as particularly intelligent or wise.

I think that has less to do with any views on morality or intelligence and more to do with the classic issue of authors wanting their protagonists to cleverly outwit the villains, but can't be bothered to actually think of a clever plan, so instead the villains randomly turn into idiots.

[Vahnavoi]

You are conflating the Idiot Ball with the Villain Ball. What sets these apart is that the latter trope often specifically carries a moral lesson about how evil is self-defeating. In case of Dragon Lance, you are also wrong. The observation is about persistent character traits in the novel fiction as contrasted with game statistics, not any particular dramatic turn. The case with Belkar is the opposite of what you're thinking of: an evil character who is consistently self-sabotaging and awful, randomly becomes less so when their Wisdom score is increased. Arguably post-Azure City character development of Belkar is a case study of someone becoming both wiser and moral moral.

[NichG]

You are skipping a step: in order to play someone who is not you, any human will have to think what they do before they do it.

Furthermore, the advice is genuinely quite difficult to follow in any game that begins with character creation. Character creation is fundamentally a player thinking of what they will do and how they will act in a game.


A related error is the fixation on 'depicting a character correctly' as something of innate value, independent of the experience that the act of playing that character provides for the person or the table.

It's pretty easy to follow the advice - stop worrying about whether you're roleplaying correctly, and just learn what feels natural for that character. If you're playing a character you envisioned as an alcoholic but it never actually feels right to have them go on a night of binge drinking, listen to that intuition and see where it goes.

If you are actually interested in the possibilities of not-yourself things rather than just feeling obligated to depict something sufficiently different, you generally won't just end up playing yourself by doing this. And if you did end up playing yourself, that's not actually a disaster either.



It's possible to avoid voicing any of it aloud, but in a multiplayer game, there's a clear function to communicating such intent. It's about setting expectations and then showing you can actually follow through. You can't achieve that by doing whatever and letting other people worry about it.

The sort of communication needed to coordinate multiplayer strategies is a metagame need and it can exist entirely at the metagame layer. If needed, the action can pause for that communication to take place.

[Satinavian]

The players around a table are real people, and you have to be willing to talk about their real capabilities if you want to argue what they can or cannot realistically play. If you want to argue "smart characters are hard to play, dumb brutes are easy to play, so people should play dumb brutes", that is

a) questionable
b) unrelated to alignment


What sets these apart is that the latter trope often specifically carries a moral lesson about how evil is self-defeating. RPGs are not about teaching moral lessons.
In fact, waiting for the evil PC to fail just because "evil is self defeating" or "good always wins" is bound to run in disappointment. Tropes such as those won't happen unless the players themself want to or some heavy railroading is going on.

[Vahnavoi]

A related error is the fixation on 'depicting a character correctly' as something of innate value, independent of the experience that the act of playing that character provides for the person or the table.

Who is making that error? A specific character always provides specific experiences to the person and their table that are dependent on remaining legible, acceptable and playable to the people involved. More often than not, people anguish over depicting their characters correctly because there is genuine value to be had that way, it doesn't matter if it's innate or not.

I do occasionally tell people to not worry about being correct, but 95% of the time that's because there's no benchmark, or because I know they cannot do it. Not a single word about whether correct portrayal has innate value is necessary to explain to a player that nobody is expecting is a flawless portrayal and they can do something else instead.


It's pretty easy to follow the advice - stop worrying about whether you're roleplaying correctly, and just learn what feels natural for that character. If you're playing a character you envisioned as an alcoholic but it never actually feels right to have them go on a night of binge drinking, listen to that intuition and see where it goes.

If you are actually interested in the possibilities of not-yourself things rather than just feeling obligated to depict something sufficiently different, you generally won't just end up playing yourself by doing this.

This doesn't really pan out for practical roleplaying, or any other kind of activity either.

If I say I'm going to play an alcoholic, that is the challenge I am setting for myself - playing a character that is recognizably alcoholic both to myself and the other players in that game is benchmark for correctness, that is a tangible thing I can use to tell if I've succeeded. It's the same thing as in kendo, saying I'm going to hit my opponent's head and then actually trying to hit them in the head.

Nowhere is it given that my natural intuitions will direct me in that course. On the contrary, for most things you'd care to name, it takes a lot of conscious practice before the action becomes natural. Most things, especially for the first time you try them, will be counter-intuitive and even uncomfortable before you've had that practice. Changing your course of action at too slight resistance leads to prematurely giving up. In roleplaying games, this manifests as starting a lot of characters and then abandoning them one after another before any of them take off the ground; for the example, it might mean I never end up playing any kind of alcoholic, for kendo, it might mean I flail around and score no points. The self-prescription effect exists to get people over that.

Doing what comes naturally is great for roles a player has already internalized, but most people don't start there, and they need their cheat sheet of set character traits to get there.


And if you did end up playing yourself, that's not actually a disaster either.

I don't consider playing as myself, or my players playing as themselves, a disaster. I consider it step one of learning how to play. Following rule-like statements of how a different person would act is step two. No-one dies by not moving onward, but it's obviously limiting in terms of scenarios and characters a player can play.


The sort of communication needed to coordinate multiplayer strategies is a metagame need and it can exist entirely at the metagame layer. If needed, the action can pause for that communication to take place.

Stopping to say what you are going to do before your character does it, either IS concrete description of taking a pause to communicate, or what you call a "metagame" layer here is in fact just part of the game.

For contrast, there are plenty of other games, from co-operative to competitive, kendo and some variations of pool coming immediately to my mind, where announcing what you are about to do is part of the game. That can work for roleplaying all the same, especially when talking about classic tabletop format where game moves have to be processed by a game master anyway.

Either clarify what you mean by "metagame", or accept that you are drawing a distinction without a difference.

---


If you want to argue "smart characters are hard to play, dumb brutes are easy to play, so people should play dumb brutes", that is

a) questionable
b) unrelated to alignment

I did not argue people should play Evil characters, so the comparison fails. For the comparison to stand, it would have to be "smart characters are hard to play, dumb brutes are easy to play, you can just let people play dumb brutes no problem". Either way, for a) you'd have to specify which claim is the one you hold questionable, and why, since there are three. B) just shows you are unwilling to engage the actual argument I made.


RPGs are not about teaching moral lessons.

RPGs can be about that as easily as about anything else. Don't try to make statements I can contradict any time I hold a game if I want to. I was also specifically talking about non-RPG fiction in the part you quoted. No argument about what RPGs are "about" can disprove the observation I made.


In fact, waiting for the evil PC to fail just because "evil is self defeating" or "good always wins" is bound to run in disappointment. Tropes such as those won't happen unless the players themself want to or some heavy railroading is going on.

Uh, the very point under discussion was that how people act in a game frequently reflects what they believe, so it isn't exactly rare for players to want replicate tropes. So, self-own, right there. Likewise, no matter how you feel about "heavy railroading", that is dirt common.

[Satinavian]

I did not argue people should play Evil characters, so the comparison fails. For the comparison to stand, it would have to be "smart characters are hard to play, dumb brutes are easy to play, you can just let people play dumb brutes no problem". Either way, for a) you'd have to specify which claim is the one you hold questionable, and why, since there are three. B) just shows you are unwilling to engage the actual argument I made.That is just constant goalpost moving. First you claim that evil characters, played correctly, would be impulsive and bad at long term planning and thus would likely not fit in groups. When confronted with that matching neither alignemt descriptions or many evil archetypes, it's suddenly "but players should only be playing the dumb evil archetypes, not the smart ones, because they are not smart enough". When then pointed out that holds for good characters as well and that players who can't play smart evil characters probably can't play smart good ones either, it is now doubling down on equating "evil" with "dumb" for some reason.

So again : Intelligence and evilness are not linked. Shortsightedness or impulsivity and evilness are not linked either. Any argument that boils down to "Allowing evil characters is not a good idea because their shortsighted impulsive behavior tends to hurt the group" is just wrong.

RPGs can be about that as easily as about anything else. Don't try to make statements I can contradict any time I hold a game if I want to. I was also specifically talking about non-RPG fiction in the part you quoted. No argument about what RPGs are "about" can disprove the observation I made.RPGs as a hobby are about entertainment and fun alone. Someone who tries to abuse is to get their personal soapbox and "teach" their players about morals is just a toxic individual that should be shown the door.

Uh, the very point under discussion was that how people act in a game frequently reflects what they believe, so it isn't exactly rare for players to want replicate tropes. So, self-own, right there. Likewise, no matter how you feel about "heavy railroading", that is dirt common.That is why i said it happens when the players themself want it. It takes active affort to replicate the trope. It is nothing that emerges organically.
And yes, heavy railroading happens. But the kind of GM who tries to railroad the evil PC into failure to start some redemption arc or follow the trope is the same kind of GM who railroads a Paladin into falling for better drama.

[KorvinStarmast]

This discussion is only about game alignment, not real life morality. And only about fictional people, be it PCs or figures from other media, but never real people. It is useful to stop believing in player-character-separation at about the same time one stops believing in Santa Claus. There is an overlap, although its degree will vary with a given person's comfort of playing outside of their own experience. (And FWIW, even among professional actors that separation, or the degree of separation, varies substantially).

Arguably post-Azure City character development of Belkar is a case study of someone becoming both wiser and moral moral. The author is trying to impart a moral lesson. It becomes rather blatant in Belkars dialogue with Durkon after the great vampire battle late in Book 6. What is ironic, and amusing, to me is that the message can also be taken as "if you lie to yourself for long enough you'll believe it to be true" as a method of internal change.

RPGs are not about teaching moral lessons. Unsupported and wrong assertion, given the gigantic landscape (thousands of RPGs) of the RPG hobby. There are indie games that try that; the only one I am familiar with through play is Golden Sky Stories.

In fact, waiting for the evil PC to fail just because "evil is self defeating" or "good always wins" is bound to run in disappointment. That's a pointless statement. The general RPG framework is that interaction and conflict within the fictional world end up with a resolution.
You don't actually have a game if you wait for evil to self destruct, wait for the paint to dry, wait for Mr Goodbar to arrive, wait for the good fey spirit to deliver you a magic item, wait for Cthulhu to eat everyone's soul, etc.

[Satinavian]

It is useful to stop believing in player-character-separation at about the same time one stops believing in Santa Claus. There is an overlap, although its degree will vary with a given person's comfort of playing outside of their own experience. (And FWIW, even among professional actors that separation, or the degree of separation, varies substantially).
Well, that is why i already pointed out what i think is the biggest hurdle for playing evil characters : Creating one that you actually like enough that playing them is fun, not a chore. I have seen people try evil characters and, even without disrupting the group or adventure, abandon them in disgust eventually.
That is why you get so many barely evil or "technically evil" chars. The utterly despicable characters are not something their own players can stomach.

[KorvinStarmast]

... the biggest hurdle for playing evil characters : Creating one that you actually like enough that playing them is fun, not a chore. That is my experience as well.

I have seen people try evil characters and, even without disrupting the group or adventure, abandon them in disgust eventually. I have seen more often the attempt to be evil become disruptive. The fallout from that ranges from group break up, character retirement, player leaving, and other outcomes. I have seen evil characters played very, very well a few times. It's impressive to me when it is done well because from where I sit, it's hard to do. (That may be my own limitation). I've played one evil character in 5e (a cleric, Max Wilson DM) and it worked out well enough but our group was working so hard to succeed at whatever it was we were doing (Max likes to challenge the players, which is great) that alignment rarely cropped up as an issue.
That is why you get so many barely evil or "technically evil" chars. The utterly despicable characters are not something their own players can stomach. Or you get a monk who plays as a stone cold killer (I have one such player) and all around socieopath yet still asserts that his alignment is neutral. In that particular group (a beer and pretzels game) it's not worth it to me, as a DM, to make an issue of his alignment, but I have him tracked as between LE and NE for the time being in my notes. So far, the only close call we've had with alignment rearing its head was the White Plume Mountain adventure - but Blackrazor wasn't interested in him.

(Insofar as alignments being used descriptively, per Tanarii's position, I find it hard not to cast Monk PCs in D&D as lawful, or lawful something, based on the kind of self discipline and philosophy that the archetype is originally built from. But I won't die on a hill for that).

[Keltest]

Or you get a monk who plays as a stone cold killer (I have one such player) and all around socieopath yet still asserts that his alignment is neutral. In that particular group (a beer and pretzels game) it's not worth it to me, as a DM, to make an issue of his alignment, but I have him tracked as between LE and NE for the time being in my notes. So far, the only close call we've had with alignment rearing its head was the White Plume Mountain adventure - but Blackrazor wasn't interested in him.

(Insofar as alignments being used descriptively, per Tanarii's position, I find it hard not to cast Monk PCs in D&D as lawful, or lawful something, based on the kind of self discipline and philosophy that the archetype is originally built from. But I won't die on a hill for that).

You can be a stone cold killer and be neutral, unless youre trying to imply that he regularly kills people unprovoked. Neutral is willing to go pretty far in defense of their immediate circle of things they care about.

[Vahnavoi]

That is just constant goalpost moving. First you claim that evil characters, played correctly, would be impulsive and bad at long term planning and thus would likely not fit in groups. When confronted with that matching neither alignemt descriptions or many evil archetypes, it's suddenly "but players should only be playing the dumb evil archetypes, not the smart ones, because they are not smart enough". When then pointed out that holds for good characters as well and that players who can't play smart evil characters probably can't play smart good ones either, it is now doubling down on equating "evil" with "dumb" for some reason.

I'm not moving goal posts - you aren't even playing on the field, your disagreement being over something I didn't claim. My claim was that in real life we have abundant examples of people who are impulsive, short-sighted (etc.) and who are considered immoral for those very reasons. I then pointed out that how this affects how people interpret and play "Evil" characters, and argued that most players will play their most realistic "Evil" characters in this type. Again, the argument from game rules debunks nothing of this. The fact that, say, "evil genius" exist as an archetype allowed by game rules, does not mean "evil genius" is more realistic depiction of evil, nor that people are better at playing it realistically.

I haven't said a word about what I think about how well people play realistic "smart Good" characters. In fact, double-checking the argument, it doesn't seem like even came up until now. Unsurprisingly, I have little faith in most people's ability to play "smart Good" realistically either, but that's different from saying they shouldn't play them. Your biggest error is, again, reading a "should" statement where there is none.


So again : Intelligence and evilness are not linked. Shortsightedness or impulsivity and evilness are not linked either.

Strictly in terms of game rules, you can be correct. In terms of what people actually think and how they act? Not so much.


Any argument that boils down to "Allowing evil characters is not a good idea because their shortsighted impulsive behavior tends to hurt the group" is just wrong.

I specifically argued for allowing "Evil" characters who are short-sighted and impulsive whose behaviour tends to hurt their group, because a game can just be built around the conflict the cause, and a game doesn't have to be about a "group" to begin with. There are other arguments in this thread that boil to what you outline, but mine is not one of them, so stop pretending it is.


RPGs as a hobby are about entertainment and fun alone. Someone who tries to abuse is to get their personal soapbox and "teach" their players about morals is just a toxic individual that should be shown the door.

Roleplaying games, even traditional tabletop roleplaying games where you go in a dungeon to kill monsters, can and have been used for serious pedagogic purposes. The hobby evolved from a genre of wargames that was originally made for instruction of military officers. "RPGs as a hobby are about entertainment and fun alone" is an empty mantra hobbyists chant to themselves, it's not and has never been a serious argument for keeping roleplaying games from other uses. That you can only imagine a toxic person standing on a soapbox doing this is a failure of your imagination. As far as I'm concerned, you might as well be making this argument about books, movies, or video games - or if you want to stay in the realm of small group hobbies, scouting, martial arts, or Olympic sports, all of which have their own morals and ethical guidelines that are taught by hobbyists to hobbyists.

The truth of using roleplaying games for morality tales is closer to scouts telling campfire stories, than anything you're thinking of. On that note, people tell morality tales to each other for fun and entertainment, you know? These aren't 100% mutually exclusive uses that never meet in practice.


That is why i said it happens when the players themself want it. It takes active affort to replicate the trope. It is nothing that emerges organically.

On that level, nothing in a roleplaying game happens without effort, none of it emerges organically. That's a triviality, it's not an argument for or against anything specific. What does happen naturally is that people take their beliefs and existing personality into a game - as in, it's in nature of all exercises involving people. Cultural and narrative tropes are very much part and parcel of that, it is contrary to reality to argue that people don't set up their games specifically to replicate familiar tropes, including tropes pertaining to morality.


And yes, heavy railroading happens. But the kind of GM who tries to railroad the evil PC into failure to start some redemption arc or follow the trope is the same kind of GM who railroads a Paladin into falling for better drama.

This is both unsubstantiated and a red herring. Whether or not the same kind of game masters do both is immaterial to the claims I made.

[Tanarii]

Making impulsive not-considering-consequences decisions without first considering pre-envisioned motivations should only lead to regular in-game-evil associated behavior on the part of the PC if the player's natural instincts when there are no real world consequences would lead to it.

Yes, that's classically/ stereotypically how you often end up with murder hobos. But that's definitely going to a YMMV table specific thing. :)

[NichG]

Who is making that error? A specific character always provides specific experiences to the person and their table that are dependent on remaining legible, acceptable and playable to the people involved. More often than not, people anguish over depicting their characters correctly because there is genuine value to be had that way, it doesn't matter if it's innate or not.

You are currently. You're using arguments that assume an agreement in core values - that roleplaying properly, or roleplaying 'well' in some abstract sense, or doing what the game tells you to are their own reward.

Whereas I'm saying that for those who still have a choice about their core values when it comes to tabletop RPGs, its better to choose to follow the path of joy and let discipline emerge if you find it joyful, than to follow the path of discipline and hope that joy will emerge as a result of 'doing it right'. Not that someone who follows the path of discipline is wrong to do so - you value what you value, in the end. But if you don't know yet and are still deciding, joy leads to a smoother experience, a nicer culture, and generally avoids this sort of dead end state where gaming ends up feeling like an obligation or a job.

You can prioritize joy and still develop skills and improve in things and so on. But you'll do so specifically in the directions where pushing those skills feels inherently good to do. And yes that means you won't learn skills that feel miserable to you work on. The mistake of talking about innate value is to assume that everyone should consider that enough of a shame to care, rather than saying 'alright, so I won't develop those skills, but I'm still having fun'.

[Vahnavoi]

You are currently. You're using arguments that assume an agreement in core values - that roleplaying properly, or roleplaying 'well' in some abstract sense, or doing what the game tells you to are their own reward.

Whereas I'm saying that for those who still have a choice about their core values when it comes to tabletop RPGs, its better to choose to follow the path of joy and let discipline emerge if you find it joyful, than to follow the path of discipline and hope that joy will emerge as a result of 'doing it right'. Not that someone who follows the path of discipline is wrong to do so - you value what you value, in the end. But if you don't know yet and are still deciding, joy leads to a smoother experience, a nicer culture, and generally avoids this sort of dead end state where gaming ends up feeling like an obligation or a job.

You can prioritize joy and still develop skills and improve in things and so on. But you'll do so specifically in the directions where pushing those skills feels inherently good to do. And yes that means you won't learn skills that feel miserable to you work on. The mistake of talking about innate value is to assume that everyone should consider that enough of a shame to care, rather than saying 'alright, so I won't develop those skills, but I'm still having fun'.

I was specifically criticizing you for neglecting self-motivation as the source of the obligation you mentioned, as well as disagreeing with you on the idea that such obligation inevitably leads to problems.

The way you're trying to decouple self-motivation from feeling "inherently good" does not make a lick of sense. That sensation is the same thing that makes playing a self-chosen character correctly it's "own reward". It is concrete part of the experience playing that character brings to a table, not an abstraction. (Also, there's a children's movie, and accompanying real psychological theory, about how simple following joy and joy alone is a naive idea that isn't even healthy in the end. But that's another discussion.)

Given that, it does not make sense to talk of it as an error. More, you are trying to offer one aspect of self-motivation as solution to another aspect that you see as inevitably causing problems. But as I pointed out, often the self-obligation part only causes problems when it rams into external expectations. This can, and does, happen if there is no feeling of obligation and you're just going with the flow, doing what is joyful. So your solution does not actually solve anything, save for the cases where a person's misery is purely self-caused.

[NichG]

I was specifically criticizing you for neglecting self-motivation as the source of the obligation you mentioned, as well as disagreeing with you on the idea that such obligation inevitably leads to problems.

The way you're trying to decouple self-motivation from feeling "inherently good" does not make a lick of sense. That sensation is the same thing that makes playing a self-chosen character correctly it's "own reward". It is concrete part of the experience playing that character brings to a table, not an abstraction. (Also, there's a children's movie, and accompanying real psychological theory, about how simple following joy and joy alone is a naive idea that isn't even healthy in the end. But that's another discussion.)

Given that, it does not make sense to talk of it as an error. More, you are trying to offer one aspect of self-motivation as solution to another aspect that you see as inevitably causing problems. But as I pointed out, often the self-obligation part only causes problems when it rams into external expectations. This can, and does, happen if there is no feeling of obligation and you're just going with the flow, doing what is joyful. So your solution does not actually solve anything, save for the cases where a person's misery is purely self-caused.

Never said inevitably.

But a lot of the problems I see with dysfunctional groups, bad gaming experiences, people making themselves miserable, hostile or even toxic group cultures, etc stem from an attitude of treating roleplaying as some sort of obligation, treating 'roleplaying correctly' as virtuous, or taking a deontological stance relative to the rules that 'the important thing is that we respect and follow the rules correctly'. Those stances don't 'inevitably' lead to problems, but they do tend to be brittle because they don't critically approach the question of 'Why am I doing this? Why do I actually care?'. For people already in that position of having received their values about roleplaying games externally, it can be hard to extricate themselves from that because it means actually changing how sense works - all the implicit assumptions about what constitutes an end, versus a means.

For people who haven't gone off that cliff yet, I think its better by far to start from the feeling of the activity and to discover what the activity means to them - what's rewarding, what's unpleasant, etc. Then 'Why am I doing this? Why do I actually care?' becomes a comfortable question to live with, and when other things are pushing and saying 'no, you should do it this way' even when that's making things break, they'll be equipped with that 'why?'.

[Satinavian]

I haven't said a word about what I think about how well people play realistic "smart Good" characters. In fact, double-checking the argument, it doesn't seem like even came up until now. Unsurprisingly, I have little faith in most people's ability to play "smart Good" realistically either, but that's different from saying they shouldn't play them. Your biggest error is, again, reading a "should" statement where there is none.It came up when i talked about how your argument does not have anything to do with alignment. But yes, my bad, you didn't advise against short-sighted characters.

Ok, so let's boil it down again :

People have problems playing smart characters. Playing dumb ones is easier. They should go for it because those feel more realistic and the problems they cause are just a welcome source of conflict.

Is that the gist of it ? If yes, do you see how that is not about alignment ?


Strictly in terms of game rules, you can be correct. In terms of what people actually think and how they act? Not so much.Rules are something we can look up. "What people actually think" is not a foundation for a discussion because we both don't know and probably disagree if we guess. But that so many "smart evil" archetypes in fiction exist, hints pretty strongly againgst people actually thinking evil is dumb.

Roleplaying games, even traditional tabletop roleplaying games where you go in a dungeon to kill monsters, can and have been used for serious pedagogic purposes. I know. And that is exactly why i specified "as hobby" to exclude all this stuff.

In the hobby Roleplaying players should treat each other with respect and as equals. Someone thinking he has to teach the others something through the game is assuming to be superior in some aspect and trying to make that aspect a central, highlighted part of the common experience. That is already a red flag. Whenever someone in this forum asks how to teach their fellow players i always advise against even trying unless they explicitely asked.
Now, if the subject to be taught is morals, it gets even worse. Then we have someone assuming he is better than the other players at knowing how to be a decent person. That is incredibly insulting and i don't tolrate it at any table.


On that level, nothing in a roleplaying game happens without effort, none of it emerges organically. That's a triviality Sure, so let's go back to what the argument was about. Namely who makes this particular trope happen or not.

Meaning if a player of an evil PC does not actively pursue the "evil is self defeating" trope, the evil of his characters probably won't be self defeating at all. And that is fine and that is still evil. And any expectation that everytime or even somewhat often the trope gets invoked for evil PCs is just misplaced. And that is not "playing those characters wrong."

Now, could a GM try to force "evil is self defeating" even if the player does not act in the way ? Sure. By heavy railroading he can make any character fail for contrievances if he really wishes. But that is both not normal and pretty much frowned upon. And it is the very same thing as the forced paladin fall.

[gbaji]

I'm going to back up to what you said earlier, because I think there are some holes in there.


The idea that characters of differing alignments can act in ways that perfectly align is still false, though, it is so both in practice and by definition. Any argument of that sort requires equivocation or recasting of alignment differences as something else. Shortly: any case where two characters act in perfectly aligned manner is an argument for those two characters being of the same alignment. Duh. Any case where two characters end up in conflict because their behaviors and values are opposed is an argument for those characters being of different alignments. Also duh. These are actual basics of the system. They are what the plain English word of "alignment" imply even outside D&D context.

I knew when I used the word "align", that someone would conflate that with "alignment" and then silliness would ensue. All I meant was that "at the time in question, the actions and decisions align". That's it. If an evil and a good person are both sick with an illness, and the cure requires obtaining some rare herb, guess what? Both are going to do the exact same thing in order to cure themselves, right? Now, the good person might want to obtain the herb and help others cure their illness as well, and the evil guy maybe only cares about curing himself, but if both cases require someone going and getting the herb, both characters will facilitate that happening. Similarly, an evil character can absolutely exist in an adventuring group and find that his own interests align with those of the rest of the party. I'm not sure why you'd assume they could not ever be the case.

Motivations are not the same as actions. Similarly, two characters of the same D&D alignment can absolutely not be "aligned" on something as well. Lawful good paladin fighting for KingA meets lawful good paladin fighting for KingB. Both are paladins. Both are in the services of a "good king". Both sides, for some reason are in a conflict over something. Could be anything. Clearly, it's possible for them to be not just not aligned in their actions, but in direct opposition in their actions, yet both be the same alignment. Not all conflicts are "good vs evil".


The funny thing is that this mindset has an alignment in D&D terms, but it is not Good as opposed to Evil. It is Lawful as opposed to Chaotic - organized group versus the individual. A lot of the ideas commonly thrown around about how players and their characters should behave demand that players toe the Party line like it's 1984.

Agree completely. Most of the examples of an "evil" character causing disruption in a party were actually describing "chaotic" actions, not evil ones. Recall that I was directly responding to a claim that it was impossible for a player to play an evil character in a group without causing disruption, because to fail to do so would be to fail to play their alignment correctly. That's the "extreme" I'm saying "no" to. I'm not at all presenting an opposite extreme though.


This dances around the issue of self-motivation and self-prescription. If I am the one who made a character and I am the one who described them as Evil, then I have an emotional self-obligation for them to act Evil. Not doing so means I never actually achieve playing the character I said I would play.

Sure. Evil, not chaotic. Evil, not dumb.


The issue is compounded by demand for contrast. That is: Good and Evil (as well as Law and Chaos or any other juxtaposing pair) is defined by and made visible through opposition. So if a Good character backs up a plan to do a thing explicitly because it is the right thing to do, then that alone give player of an Evil character a reason to oppose them, because Evil is defined by by backing up the wrong thing to do.

This is where you lose me though. Evil does not automatically mean "I do the opposite of what good people do". Good people eat food, right? So clearly to be evil you must never eat? That doesn't make sense. Ok. You restricted this to just caeses where the reason the good person is doing something is because "it is the right thing to do". Ok. But again what motivates the evil person is not just to oppose other actions taken via the motivation of "doing good". What motivates an evil person is self interest. Otherwise, you have literally defined "evil" as "contrarian", which circularly supports the initial assumption (evil can't be played without being disruptive), but is meaningless due to that cicular reasoning component.

You really can't imagine cases where two different people might desire to do the same thing, but for two very different reasons? A good person avoids speeding because he doesn't want to endanger the lives of other motorists and pedestrians. An evil person avoids speeding because he doesn't want to get a ticket. In a gaming situation, it's entirely possible (quite reasonable in fact) for an evil character to travel with a "good party", and be perfectly ok with going along with all their plans, despite them being motivated by "it's the right thing to do ", because for him the motivation is "I get a share of the treasure I'd not be able to get any of by myself", and "I get to gain reputation and contacts among the nobles/king/whatever that may benefit me in future endeavors", and even just "I'm gaining experience, items, and levels with these folks in a much safer way than any other method I might use". Heck. There's also the "I can use these saps to eliminate my rivals while enriching/empowering myself".

And yeah, we could argue that to be "evil", you should backstab the party, steal the treasure, whatever. But that's tricky. Can you actually kill the entire party and take all the treasure for yourself? That's high risk. If you fail, you've made enemies and they'll come after you. If you steal the treasure and don't kill them all, that's just as bad. Also, what are your alternatives? Join up with an adventuring group full of "evil" party members? Those people are going to try to steal from you and/or kill you at the first chance they'll get! That's dumb. Hook up with a good group, and you don't have to constantly watch your back. Seriously, any semi-smart evil character should be always choosing to join a good party and do everything they can not to mess that up (and also make sure they are the "only" evil person in the party if they can).


This naturally leads to people playing Evil as impulsive and short-sighted - that is, as "impatient" or "stupid", because in the real world around us there is a widespread conflation between morality and thinking in the long term, or "acting smart". Having reviewed a lot of arguments on the issue, I have to conclude that hobbyists who fight against his instinct are purposelessly tilting at windmills. "Evil" is not rational self-interest. Even in real life, high-functioning psychopaths who can put up a front of being respectable members of society while secretly committing atrocities are a minority rare. Most immoral and amoral people are, by contrast, insufferable and poorly tolerated by others. The groups they form between themselves are often toxic, dysfunctional and kept together by threats and use of violence. The evils they commit frequently are impulsive and lead to long-term detriment of both themselves and others. They actually do the kind of things that would lead to themselves being killed, or jailed, or exiled etc., because they don't think that far ahead or just don't care about the consequences on themselves. Their "whys" are often extremely straightforward and intuitive: why did they do the "dumb" thing? Because it felt good in the moment. Why did they hurt you even if it will hurt them as well later down the line? Because they hate your face and don't give a damn about "later down the line".

Why? Yes. These are the evil people in our society. Um... They're also the ones who get caught. These are the people with poor impulse control and just can't help stealing something, or getting high and doing something violent, or otherwise thrashing their own and other people's lives. The real world also doesn't fit into alignment systems either, but if we were to insisst on it, that would also be "chaotic" behavior, not merely "evil".

And yeah. You are correct that groups of evil people will behave that way, but that's largely because they all know that any one of them could turn on the others. Again though, the real world doesn't have alignment like D&D. Once we make the mental shift to what that actually means for a game like D&D, those assumptions kinda have to disappear as well. Evil in an RPG does not (should not) express itself the way evil does in the real world. If for no other reason than the rules we live by are very different.


Most players play the most realistic "Evil" characters they can when you just allow them to play normally, without thinking or caring too much about the consequences for their fictional characters, nevermind "the party". It just so happens that this natural, banal Evil is not conductive to 100% unproblematic smooth-sailing party play.

Again. I disagree 100% You are describing "chaotic" play, not evil. What you describe is not playing evil "normally". It's playing a very very narrow band of basically chaotic evil and assuming that's what all evil must be like.


This is not, however, an "inevitable" problem. It doesn't have to be a problem at all. Again, there's more than one way out of the trap. In this case, the simplest way is for a game master to simply pass the ball to the players themselves and tell the players that if they want their characters to function as a group, each and every one of them must individually play in a way that is conductive to functioning as a group, and they live or die by that. That involves characters punishing each other for breaking conduct, or rewarding each other for jobs well done, so on and so forth, as opposed to a game master babysitting them and trying to make them conform to external expectation of group play above and beyond what the game rules require.

This also confuses me, because you seem to be saying initially that all evil must be played as chaotic evil, but now saying that the players should react to and punish that form of play, but also saying it doesn't have to be a problem? is it not a problem because the other players will just automatically reject any "evil" character? Or because the other players should just accept disruptive play as "normal"? Or something else?

I agree that disruptive play should be discouraged at a gaming table. It's very rarely actually "fun" for more than maybe one or two people, and usually extremely "unfun" for everyone else. What I disagree with is any suggestion that this means that you can't play an evil character under such rules. It is quite possible to do so. I've provided several examples of how you could do this, complete with motivations and rationale the evil character could apply/follow to act in this way while still being "evil". Maybe I've been completely misreading you, but it certainly seems like you are arguing that playing "evil==disruptive" is somehow the natural normal way to play evil, and there's no other way to do it.

If that's not what you are saying, then great, we're in agreement. If it is, then I'd need more specific reasons why the sorts of characters I've outlined either aren't actually "evil", or would somehow not possibly be able to play without causing disruption at the table. So far, I haven't seen anything close to that.

[Tevo77777]

An evil character can be okay with, or even enthusiastically argue for, the prisoner being escorted to jail.

1) Evil characters can, and often do, make moral judgements. For example they can believe: The law enforcement system is an important foundation of society. Sure sometimes it is inconvenient to do things by the law, but having a strong law enforcement system is worth the inconvenience due to the undesirable behaviors it oppresses. (Hopefully you noticed the authoritarian vibes)

2) Evil characters can have standards. Just because a cruel murderer has standards that they only hunt wild prey, it does not make them non evil. If the prey successfully achieves asylum with the party (becomes captured) then they will be sent to jail.

3) Evil characters can compromise. They can accept prisoners going to jail if they benefit from associating with the party. Up to and including "I don't want the world to be destroyed. That's where I keep all my stuff.".


No. A character that is evil has many appropriate responses to the party wanting to jail a prisoner, including taking the prisoner to jail.

Are we really at a point where one person felt the need to explain Lawful Evil to another? I thought we all understood that?


I'm not moving goal posts - you aren't even playing on the field, your disagreement being over something I didn't claim. My claim was that in real life we have abundant examples of people who are impulsive, short-sighted (etc.) and who are considered immoral for those very reasons. I then pointed out that how this affects how people interpret and play "Evil" characters, and argued that most players will play their most realistic "Evil" characters in this type. Again, the argument from game rules debunks nothing of this. The fact that, say, "evil genius" exist as an archetype allowed by game rules, does not mean "evil genius" is more realistic depiction of evil, nor that people are better at playing it realistically.

I haven't said a word about what I think about how well people play realistic "smart Good" characters. In fact, double-checking the argument, it doesn't seem like even came up until now. Unsurprisingly, I have little faith in most people's ability to play "smart Good" realistically either, but that's different from saying they shouldn't play them. Your biggest error is, again, reading a "should" statement where there is none.


Considering the BoA I am about to finish is for History, I have to agree with it. The people who are most remembered for their cruelty, demonstrate a lack of long term planning, or intellectual ability.

[gbaji]

Are we really at a point where one person felt the need to explain Lawful Evil to another? I thought we all understood that?

I think we already established earlier in this thread that it's impossible for people to disagree on what an alignment actually means or how it can or should be played, so clearly this didn't actually happen at all. Just a figment of your imagination. Nothing to see here...

[Tevo77777]

I think we already established earlier in this thread that it's impossible for people to disagree on what an alignment actually means or how it can or should be played, so clearly this didn't actually happen at all. Just a figment of your imagination. Nothing to see here...

There are concepts that are abundantly clear and simple, and people still get confused about them. Case in point, the most distant extremes leftism and rightism.

This does not make any specific thing illegitimate or flawed, as the flaws exist within the people who do not understand what is easy to understand.

[gbaji]

There are concepts that are abundantly clear and simple, and people still get confused about them. Case in point, the most distant extremes leftism and rightism.

This does not make any specific thing illegitimate or flawed, as the flaws exist within the people who do not understand what is easy to understand.

In my experience, when people disagree over things like this, it's almost always because of a disagreement (or confusion I suppose) over the definitions of the words used to describe the things, and not the things themselves.

And sometimes, the definitions presented to people are wrong, or inconsistent, or just not useful in all cases. Saying they somehow just "don't understand" the thing itself is not terribly helpful in those cases. And honestly, it really doesn't matter what is behind it. Anything that generates that much debate, discussion, and disagreement, whether you really do believe that those people are all just confused or something, is clearly not a "good rule". Good game rules are clear and unambiguous. Alignment rules clearly aren't. Proof is in the number and degree of disagreements themselves.

At some point, we do kinda have to conclude that the D&D style alignment system is, in fact, flawed. Disagreement doesn't always mean the thing is flawed, but this much? Yeah. I think it is.

Doesn't mean you can't still use it. Just acknowledge the flaws, pick the "best way to play it out" and move on. But let's not stick our heads in the sand, sing the one that goes "tum te tum tum", and declare that the island is not really sinking, or something. Cause that's just being silly.

[Witty Username]

You can, probably, find Rich commenting on the strip and this very idea somewhere on these forums.

I don’t know about the forums, but is a think he brought it up in the physical comic books, Start of Darkness has some stuff on how to differentiate evil characters (mostly why avoiding sympathethic traits is important for Xykon's writing but less so Redcloak's) I think the Azure City book had a character study for Belkar, which selfish and short-sighted is why he is Evil, and that D&D Evil is primarily selfishness.

[Tanarii]

Oots comic views on morality and several other divisive topics are edge case versions driven by the author. They're basically the diametric opposite of an axis that has "nits make lice" author mindset as one endpoint of an axis, and "oots author mindset" as the opposite endpoint.

[Tevo77777]

Oots comic views on morality and several other divisive topics are edge case versions driven by the author. They're basically the diametric opposite of an axis that has "nits make lice" author mindset as one endpoint of an axis, and "oots author mindset" as the opposite endpoint.

I almost understood what your point is, but there are a few words that are misspelled or a sentence or few commas are missing or something.

[NichG]

I almost understood what your point is, but there are a few words that are misspelled or a sentence or few commas are missing or something.

I had to look it up, but its a phrase that was used historically to justify a massacre of children at one point - e.g. 'kill them when they're young so they don't fight us when they grow up'. Probably intended to suggest a deep end of the pool of human attitudes that OotS doesn't actually ever get anywhere close to even when depicting evil?

[PhoenixPhyre]

I had to look it up, but its a phrase that was used historically to justify a massacre of children at one point - e.g. 'kill them when they're young so they don't fight us when they grow up'. Probably intended to suggest a deep end of the pool of human attitudes that OotS doesn't actually ever get anywhere close to even when depicting evil?

Supposedly Gygax took that opinion: killing an evil creature was always good. And evil races were all evil, to the point that killing orc or goblin children was a good act because they'd grow up to be evil. Ugly.

[Tanarii]

I had to look it up, but its a phrase that was used historically to justify a massacre of children at one point - e.g. 'kill them when they're young so they don't fight us when they grow up'. Probably intended to suggest a deep end of the pool of human attitudes that OotS doesn't actually ever get anywhere close to even when depicting evil?
Gygax was one outlier due to author beliefs, and OOTS portrays an outlier in the opposite direction.

[Satinavian]

Gygax was one outlier due to author beliefs, and OOTS portrays an outlier in the opposite direction.I don't know. The way OotS handles it seems pretty close to how most groups handle it imho. Of course that makes Gygax only even more of an outlier.

[KorvinStarmast]

You can be a stone cold killer and be neutral, unless youre trying to imply that he regularly kills people unprovoked. Neutral is willing to go pretty far in defense of their immediate circle of things they care about. Yes, but he does kill NPCs out of hand now and again ...and also in the other game where he's a wizard. I have shared my experience with that previously, where my life cleric had to do an emergency use of her channel divinity on three NPCs that got killed out of hand : DM allowed that two of them were healed/not dead, but one had taken enough HP to where 'dead is dead' and a few members of our party, NOT the monk, collected some dough and went in search of his family to pay a weregild. Good RP, all in all, and a bit of a surprise to the DM that I got three of the other players (we had 7 total players at the time) to go along with me on that mission. The Wizard was the only one who did not donate.

Are we really at a point where one person felt the need to explain Lawful Evil to another? Probably, given how limited the description of that is in most editions, and how people overlay other story forms on top if it. [/quote] The people who are most remembered for their cruelty, demonstrate a lack of long term planning, or intellectual ability.[/QUOTE] Patently false on both counts. I'd suggest you broaden your research. (And I better stop there, forum rules and RL stuff)

Supposedly Gygax took that opinion: killing an evil creature was always good. And evil races were all evil, to the point that killing orc or goblin children was a good act because they'd grow up to be evil. Ugly. I am pretty sure that you are over stating the case, but the anti hagiography in re EGG has become a pathetic meme in the WoTC era. So I'll stop there.

[hamishspence]

I am pretty sure that you are over stating the case, but the anti hagiography in re EGG has become a pathetic meme in the WoTC era.
Gygax did use the "nits make lice" comment over on the Dragonsfoot forums.


https://www.dragonsfoot.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=50&t=11762&start=60


Paladins are not stupid, and in general there is no rule of Lawful Good against killing enemies. The old adage about nits making lice applies.
Also, as I have often noted, a paladin can freely dispatch prisoners of Evil alignment that have surrendered and renounced that alignment in favor of Lawful Good.

He also suggested that paladins can be "judge and jury" for prisoners, as well as hinting that it might be OK for a LG force to kill "humanoid noncombatants" (I.E. non-human children and the like).


Prisoners guilty of murder or similar capital crimes can be executed without violating any precept of the alignment. Hanging is likely the usual method of such execution, although it might be beheading, strangulation, etc. A paladin is likely a figure that would be considered a fair judge of criminal conduct.

A paladin is qualified to be judge and jury--assuming he is acting according to the oath he took to gain his status.


https://www.dragonsfoot.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=50&t=11762&start=90

The non-combatants in a humanoid group might be judged as worthy of death by a LG opponent force and executed or taken as prisoners to be converted to the correct way of thinking and behaving.

[hamishspence]

Even the Book of Exalted Deeds, which hammers home the idea that to be Good, you must be somewhat forgiving, merciful, and treat prisoners well, concedes that execution for "serious crimes" (players and DMs may have varying opinions on what constitutes "serious" in this context) is Not Evil.

But at the same time, clarifies that torture for serious crimes is always evil.

So, a character who extends "eye for eye" justice to include torture, cannot be Good by those standards.

[OldTrees1]

In case it is helpful, here is a friendly reminder that your group can set alignment to be whatever you want. You are not beholden to some author's RAW.

[gbaji]

I think we also have to remember that Gygax and his generation of RPGers were heavily influenced by wargamming (that was the original basis for their RPG games after all). In that mindset, "evil" was one "side" with "good" on the other, and they were basically fighting a "war" against eachother. So in that construct, applied to individuals, it was really about fighting for the "side of good", and less whether you were exhibiting moral qualities that we might associate with "good" or "evil".

This paradigm falls apart once we start creating game settings where maybe the orc tribes up in the mountain are "evil" alignment wise, but actually attack or raid human Kingdom A less often or seriouesly than the rival human Kingdom B does. And maybe the local bandits are also "evil", and/or "lawless", but they have families and mouths to feed that maybe motivates them far more than some grand "conquer the world in the name of evil" sort of thing. The moment you introduce more complex social and policial interactions, many of those older alignment assumptions just don't work anymore. And I suspect that most players and GMs no longer run games in the very simplistic "evil are on one side, good on the other" paradigm. So a lot of the stuff Gygax said about what LG paladins might do in the "enforcement of good" comes off as pretty harsh and, well... evil.

And I think what's ironic is that we can also somewhat flip things around a bit when we actually do have "sides" being expressed. Take Redcloak. He's defined as having a lawful evil alignment. But are the goblins themselves actually "evil". He's fighting for them, but they certainly seem to be able to form larger communities, work together for common causes, and as far as we've seen there's no more internal conflict among them than we've seen in human socieites portrayed in the work (less actually). So his "evil" isn't really because of his plans or work for goblinkind, nor his attack and conquest of Azure City. Frankly, the only thing that actually makes him evil at all is his treatment of the prisoners. Everything else he's done we might ascribe to any leader fighthing for the betterment of his people against a larger existing socio-political structure which treats them as outsiders to be killed on sight.

That certainly makes him evil enough to be "evil", but puts some things in perspective. Those are the same actions we might imagine a human leader doing, which pretty firmly destroys the whole "sides" concept. Heck, the Elf commander engaged in pretty "evil" actiions himself. We don't know if he'd have tortured captured goblins if he had them though, so hard to say where that actually falls. But outright killing a goblin who surrendered and offered to help work for them because he was a goblin is certainly speciest, and falls directly into the socio-political structure that the goblins (somewhat legitimately) are fighting against. Doesn't justify Redcloaks own actions against captured humans, but does put that in perspective I think.

[KorvinStarmast]

I think we also have to remember that Gygax and his generation of RPGers were heavily influenced by wargamming (that was the original basis for their RPG games after all). In that mindset, "evil" was one "side" with "good" on the other, and they were basically fighting a "war" against eachother. So in that construct, applied to individuals, it was really about fighting for the "side of good", and less whether you were exhibiting moral qualities that we might associate with "good" or "evil".
It think that it goes a little deeper than war games. My dad, and Gary Gygax (who was 7-8 years younger than my dad) grew up during World War II which was a very real case of us-versus-them. As they grew a bit older the Korean War started and lasted for 3 years. This was also a very clear case of us-versus-them for the people who experienced them as current events rather than as a topic in a book of history. I am pretty sure that they were both exposed to news reels when they went to the cinema, at the very least, as well as newspapers and radio broadcasts. The environment one experiences can inform a world view where there very much is an existential struggle as a baseline assumption.

As to your orc example, in the original game orcs were neutral or chaotic, while goblins were chaotic. (And they were most typically minions of {insert evil enemy leader here} rather than stand alone creatures, but over time that got a bit more complex and nuanced).

[Bartmanhomer]

Even the Book of Exalted Deeds, which hammers home the idea that to be Good, you must be somewhat forgiving, merciful, and treat prisoners well, concedes that execution for "serious crimes" (players and DMs may have varying opinions on what constitutes "serious" in this context) is Not Evil.

But at the same time, clarifies that torture for serious crimes is always evil.

So, a character who extends "eye for eye" justice to include torture, cannot be Good by those standards.
I agree. :smile:

[Quertus]

Supposedly Gygax took that opinion: killing an evil creature was always good. And evil races were all evil, to the point that killing orc or goblin children was a good act because they'd grow up to be evil. Ugly.

It’s only ugly if you assume human… moral variance. I don’t let a baby thistle grow up, hoping it’ll become a welcome part of my lawn. It’s only ugly to murder baby thistles in a world where they’re capable of growing up to be money trees.


In my experience, when people disagree over things like this, it's almost always because of a disagreement (or confusion I suppose) over the definitions of the words used to describe the things, and not the things themselves.

And sometimes, the definitions presented to people are wrong, or inconsistent, or just not useful in all cases. Saying they somehow just "don't understand" the thing itself is not terribly helpful in those cases. And honestly, it really doesn't matter what is behind it. Anything that generates that much debate, discussion, and disagreement, whether you really do believe that those people are all just confused or something, is clearly not a "good rule". Good game rules are clear and unambiguous. Alignment rules clearly aren't. Proof is in the number and degree of disagreements themselves.

At some point, we do kinda have to conclude that the D&D style alignment system is, in fact, flawed. Disagreement doesn't always mean the thing is flawed, but this much? Yeah. I think it is.

Doesn't mean you can't still use it. Just acknowledge the flaws, pick the "best way to play it out" and move on. But let's not stick our heads in the sand, sing the one that goes "tum te tum tum", and declare that the island is not really sinking, or something. Cause that's just being silly.

As much as I agree that Alignment is flawed, I can’t agree with your line of thought to get there. Here’s an example of a perfectly reasonable idea that engendered mass confusion that I pasted in 2016 (ugh, I used to talk like that?):

In college, one of my professors saw me sitting in the back, by the door (the total slacker's spot). He noted the open books (novel and gaming books), dice, and snacks. And I noticed him take note of these things as he walked in the door, first day of class. When I never more than glanced up at him during his lecture, he made a point to call on me - quite literally half the time he asked a question about his lecture, he specifically addressed that question to me.

When, without fail, I would give a complete and well-reasoned answer, without ever looking up from my gaming books, after two weeks he came to understand that was just how I am.

Teachers have to teach to the slowest member of the class. If you want me to stay engaged, my mind has to be occupied - and teaching to the slowest member of the class just won't cut it.

One of my fellow students (in another class) brought a coloring book to class every day. It wasn't just me.

Actually, this same professor came to appreciate how much I paid attention, and how well I understood what was going on.

One day, well into the semester, my professor was trying to explain token ring LAN topography.

For those of you that don't know, originally, computers just communicated on their network whenever they wanted to. Well, whenever anyone else wasn't already talking, that is. In order to deal with the problem when two computers started talking at the same time, they simultaneously listened to what they were saying - if what they heard want the same as what they were saying, they would just scream random gibberish for a bit, to make sure that the other computer(s) knew that 2+ computers had been talking at the same time. Then (to keep them from starting back up at the same time), whenever anyone heard gibberish, everyone would go silent for a random amount of time before talking again.

This worked well for a few, usually quiet computers. But the more computers you added, and the more frequent the traffic, the less efficient this technique became.

So someone invented token ring. The network has a "token". Only the computer with the token is allowed to talk. It is only allowed to talk for so long before it has to pass the token to the next computer. A computer with the token does not need to keep the token for the full duration - it may pass the token as soon as it is done talking.

Yes, there is some inefficiency in passing the token around, but for large, active networks, this is much more efficient than the time lost due to multiple computers speaking at once.

The class didn't get it.

Nobody seemed to get it. Everybody was asking questions about how you knew who had the token, complaining about the complicated time-sharing algorithms that would have to be dynamically updated whenever you added a new computer to the network, etc.

It was a total train wreck. And none of my professor's perfectly reasonable responses seemed to sink in. They just didn't get it.

Then I raised my hand. This never happened. You could just see my professor's heart sink. Having boldly tried, to no avail, to fend off every question and misconception from my classmates, he seemed to lose hope at the idea that I, too, was lost. He hesitantly called my name.

It's just like smoking a joint. You take the joint, you take your toke, you pass it on. If you don't want a toke, you just take the joint, and pass it on. If someone joins the group, all you gotta know is who's passing to them - there is no complicated time sharing algorithm.

The class was silent. After a few moments, the professor asked if anyone still didn't understand token ring. The class was silent.

So even a perfectly reasonable idea can cause confusion with a suboptimal presentation.


In case it is helpful, here is a friendly reminder that your group can set alignment to be whatever you want. You are not beholden to some author's RAW.

Although true, it only adds to the confusion when there isn’t a clear right answer. I would say, “and invites ‘no wealth 3e’ levels of breaking the game in the name of improvement”, except that Alignment isn’t really that useful or integrated.

[OldTrees1]

In case it is helpful, here is a friendly reminder that your group can set alignment to be whatever you want. You are not beholden to some author's RAW.
Although true, it only adds to the confusion when there isn’t a clear right answer.

Yes, what I said was true. I don't see how the 2nd half of the sentence relates to what I said. I agree that confusion is confusion, but I don't see it relating to "People playing _insert_RPG_here_ are not required to be beholden to the author's morality. Here is a reminder that we can set alignment based on our group rather than based on an author. This reminder might undermine some of the bickering."

Groups that exercise their awareness that they are not beholden to an author's RAW about alignment, can still have clear answers about alignment. They clearly disagreed with the author, which means whatever the group chooses to set alignment as will be at least as clear as what they are discarding. (assuming the group finds value in and uses alignment in the first place)

[Quertus]

Yes, what I said was true. I don't see how the 2nd half of the sentence relates to what I said. I agree that confusion is confusion, but I don't see it relating to "People playing _insert_RPG_here_ are not required to be beholden to the author's morality. Here is a reminder that we can set alignment based on our group rather than based on an author. This reminder might undermine some of the bickering."

Groups that exercise their awareness that they are not beholden to an author's RAW about alignment, can still have clear answers about alignment. They clearly disagreed with the author, which means whatever the group chooses to set alignment as will be at least as clear as what they are discarding. (assuming the group finds value in and uses alignment in the first place)

Hilariously, I was just discussing something like this IRL, but... it'd take too many words to explain.

So, instead... point is, when there's not enforced standardization, when everyone is allowed to do as they please, it's really danged hard to get together (say, on a forum) and have a meaningful discussion, when there isn't a right or wrong answer to how the rules work.

So, yes, it makes it easier for the individual table... but harder to have a productive cross-table conversation, when I "do as I please", and add my Strength score to all my saving throws, and then come to the forums and complain how Strength-based characters are OP.

It's why the... "lingua franca" of the Playground is RAW, because being able to assume that common baseline unless specified otherwise is tremendously helpful to clear communication.

That's what I was getting at with that second part - understanding the costs involved in promoting leaning on the lack of enforced standardization of terms.

[OldTrees1]

Hilariously, I was just discussing something like this IRL, but... it'd take too many words to explain.

So, instead... point is, when there's not enforced standardization, when everyone is allowed to do as they please, it's really danged hard to get together (say, on a forum) and have a meaningful discussion, when there isn't a right or wrong answer to how the rules work.
Enforced standardization communicates to me the concept of policing playgroups. I think you just meant standardization.

True, but in this context recognizing the random author of a random RPG has no authority is very worthwhile. Especially when the standardization required for this thread (game agnostic thread talking about alignment systems) does not require standardization of "good" to mean what a specific random author thought.

If a random author's opinions on alignment are ill suited for a specific playgroup, there is no benefit to pretending that random author has any say at all. This is a reminder that it is okay and expected for a playgroup to know that they are free to ignore the author's opinions if they are ill suited for that playgroup.


It also did not need to be converted into a subthread. I gave the reminder. I am not going to continue a subthread explaining it.

[Satinavian]

It’s only ugly if you assume human… moral variance. I don’t let a baby thistle grow up, hoping it’ll become a welcome part of my lawn. It’s only ugly to murder baby thistles in a world where they’re capable of growing up to be money trees.That could kinda work if alignment was something by humans and for humans. If only humans had alignment and were judged by the rules and demihumans, abberations, angels, demons etc were all non-aligned or got their completely separate code. And even then, "kicking a puppy" is literally the clicheé evil action, so even human alignment condiders behavior towards and emphasizing with other species.

But this is not what alignment has ever been in D&D. Instead it is always a cosmic forcee based on "one size fits all" and every sentient being and its morals is included. This requires some form of reciprocity and universality.

[Quertus]

That could kinda work if alignment was something by humans and for humans. If only humans had alignment and were judged by the rules and demihumans, abberations, angels, demons etc were all non-aligned or got their completely separate code. And even then, "kicking a puppy" is literally the clicheé evil action, so even human alignment condiders behavior towards and emphasizing with other species.

But this is not what alignment has ever been in D&D. Instead it is always a cosmic forcee based on "one size fits all" and every sentient being and its morals is included. This requires some form of reciprocity and universality.

I’m confused. Suppose…

A baby Demon will always grow up to be a Demon, will always enjoy kicking puppies and making other sentient beings miserable. A baby orc will always grow up to be an orc, will always enjoy kicking puppies and enforcing their will over others through as much force as is necessary to do so. A baby vampire will always grow up to be a vampire, will always be completely emotionless, and will coldly evaluate kicking puppies, murder, and taking the last slice of pizza with the exact same cost/benefit analysis, completely devoid of internal moral considerations. A baby thistle will always grow up to be a thistle, never a money tree.

In this scenario, which of these do you shy away from applying a label of “evil” to, and why?

[NichG]

I’m confused. Suppose…

A baby Demon will always grow up to be a Demon, will always enjoy kicking puppies and making other sentient beings miserable. A baby orc will always grow up to be an orc, will always enjoy kicking puppies and enforcing their will over others through as much force as is necessary to do so. A baby vampire will always grow up to be a vampire, will always be completely emotionless, and will coldly evaluate kicking puppies, murder, and taking the last slice of pizza with the exact same cost/benefit analysis, completely devoid of internal moral considerations. A baby thistle will always grow up to be a thistle, never a money tree.

In this scenario, which of these do you shy away from applying a label of “evil” to, and why?

Well for one, in terms of real-world morality, I don't particularly think a moral system that tries to maximize the amount of good people and minimize the amount of bad people in the world would be a good system to live with.

The moral weight of a person isn't whether it becomes useful to me or aligned with my morality, its that they're a person. And I don't mean specifically 'human' here, but more like sapient agents capable of participating in a shared society with me. Thistle basically can't do that. A vampire who is always completely emotionless and amoral but is able to be compelled to behave themselves by social pressure? As deserving of existence as any person.

[Quertus]

Well for one, in terms of real-world morality, I don't particularly think a moral system that tries to maximize the amount of good people and minimize the amount of bad people in the world would be a good system to live with.

The moral weight of a person isn't whether it becomes useful to me or aligned with my morality, its that they're a person. And I don't mean specifically 'human' here, but more like sapient agents capable of participating in a shared society with me. Thistle basically can't do that. A vampire who is always completely emotionless and amoral but is able to be compelled to behave themselves by social pressure? As deserving of existence as any person.

Ok, I think I follow, but… suppose we decide vampires are deserving of existence, and demons are not. Suppose we encounter another sentient race that we can coexist with, despite the fact that they have completely different values than we do. Suppose there’s a race they can coexist with just fine (say, demons) that we can’t. They, otoh, with their different values, cannot coexist with Vampires.

How would your method evaluate which species(es) were deserving of existence in such a scenario?

(Of course, humans aren’t exactly uniform in their tendencies to cave to social pressure to conform, and neither their values, not their skill at picking and choosing their battles, are uniform, either. So I’m worried how this method would evaluate humanity instead of these fictional, uniform races. Some members of Humanity deserve to exist? :smalleek:)

[NichG]

Ok, I think I follow, but… suppose we decide vampires are deserving of existence, and demons are not. Suppose we encounter another sentient race that we can coexist with, despite the fact that they have completely different values than we do. Suppose there’s a race they can coexist with just fine (say, demons) that we can’t. They, otoh, with their different values, cannot coexist with Vampires.

How would your method evaluate which species(es) were deserving of existence in such a scenario?

(Of course, humans aren’t exactly uniform in their tendencies to cave to social pressure to conform, and neither their values, not their skill at picking and choosing their battles, are uniform, either. So I’m worried how this method would evaluate humanity instead of these fictional, uniform races. Some members of Humanity deserve to exist? :smalleek:)

For myself, I'd say there's no guarantee that there is a morally acceptable answer to 'what to do?' in a given situation. You can just be stuck with bad options or ambiguous questions.

I can't speak for others on this, but the 'ends' such as they are that I think moral consideration serves are to take into account those things you cannot directly account for - how others will respond in their behaviors to your actions and to eachothers' actions, how behaviors create space or eliminate it that others may want, how to generally create shared understandings that allow groups to move past things like mutually assured destruction as mechanisms for coexistence.

So the exclusion of something from having moral weight in its own regards isn't a metaphysical statement, its also a pragmatic one. An agent that knows it could coexist with you, but sees you reject that coexistence, has no reason to hold back from treating you as an enemy as well. They have no reason to act in a way that considers your needs or benefits. But if coming to a compromise is possible, then its possible to avoid mutually harmful conflicts and possible to realize mutually beneficial co-operations.

This isn't either a strictly utilitarian 'make the number as big as possible' view either. Or at least, the 'utility' here isn't any single state function but rather considers the set of possibilities across the subjective viewpoints of each participant in that society, including 'ways that things could be' rather than just 'ways that things are'. In order to be useful as a morality - a heuristic for 'how to behave' in absence of detailed calculation - rather than a 'strategy' it has to generalize even to cases where you don't know much or anything about the other entities, their values, etc.

That's just my preferred method of derivation of a moral system of course. Others will vary on that. But part of the point for me is to make something that is actually robust against 'others will vary', even if they vary in ways I can't understand.

And as for whether or not 'only some humans deserve to exist', yeah, that could happen with this kind of system. Or rather than talking about 'deserve', you could have situations in which including one human's preferred way of being would exclude a million others from being able to continue existing, and where practically speaking trying to deny that preferred way of being leads to that person actively trying to destroy the rest of society unless they themselves are rendered incapable of it. In which case, this particular moral system is not one in which 'not being responsible for doing harm' is more important than the harm.

[OldTrees1]

I’m confused. Suppose…

A baby Demon will always grow up to be a Demon, will always enjoy kicking puppies and making other sentient beings miserable. A baby orc will always grow up to be an orc, will always enjoy kicking puppies and enforcing their will over others through as much force as is necessary to do so. A baby vampire will always grow up to be a vampire, will always be completely emotionless, and will coldly evaluate kicking puppies, murder, and taking the last slice of pizza with the exact same cost/benefit analysis, completely devoid of internal moral considerations. A baby thistle will always grow up to be a thistle, never a money tree.

In this scenario, which of these do you shy away from applying a label of “evil” to, and why?

I am not NichG but this sounded like a great opportunity to mention Moral Agency and drop some links.

If an entity is not a Moral Agent then I view them as unaligned on the moral axis*.

If an entity lacks the capacity to choose what they ought to choose or lacks the capacity to choose what they ought not choose, then they do not have the capability to make choices with moral weight. If an entity does not have the capability to make choices with moral weight, then they are not a Moral Agent. If an entity is not a Moral Agent then I view them as unaligned on the moral axis.

A baby thistle is unaligned. In my campaigns, demons have alignment. With all the necessary requirements of moral agency such a descriptor entails in my campaign. Your demons, on the other hand, might not be moral agents and thus I might describe them as unaligned.


*Although they could still have an alignment on the celestial/fiend axis if you are using that amoral axis instead of a moral axis.


Relevant articles (deep and shallow respectively) about the concept of moral agency. There are differing views on what the necessary and sufficient conditions of moral agency are. I answered above using my views of one of the necessary conditions.
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/moral-responsibility/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_agency#Distinction_between_moral_agency_and_ moral_patienthood

[Satinavian]

Ok, I think I follow, but… suppose we decide vampires are deserving of existence, and demons are not. Suppose we encounter another sentient race that we can coexist with, despite the fact that they have completely different values than we do. Suppose there’s a race they can coexist with just fine (say, demons) that we can’t. They, otoh, with their different values, cannot coexist with Vampires.

How would your method evaluate which species(es) were deserving of existence in such a scenario?Simple : All sentient species deserve to exist unless their pure existence can only be sustained by killing other sentient beings.

(Of course, humans aren’t exactly uniform in their tendencies to cave to social pressure to conform, and neither their values, not their skill at picking and choosing their battles, are uniform, either. So I’m worried how this method would evaluate humanity instead of these fictional, uniform races. Some members of Humanity deserve to exist? :smalleek:)Do humans need to kill other sentients ? No ? Then they deserve to exist.

Generally a lot of species can coexist. And nearly all settings that have them and have them existing for a long time kinda prove the ability to coexist. "Can't coexist" is hardly ever really a thing. "Really don't like each other"or "don't get along well" is. But going from there to genocidal rampage is usually classified as evil. Unless you are playing very very old D&D editions.

As for moral agents i agree with the post above. It is also something that has made it into RAW in some editions even if it was not followed through every time.