Alignment shift?

[RandomNPC]

I've got a wizard in my game who's purpose is to be evil and make the party turn on him, see what it takes to kick him out.

He's just recently used Suggestion, then told the suggested he was willing to call a cease fire, just to have the party open fire when the person got within range. Then he used Dominate Person on another players mentor turned enemy.

I'm asking the party what they think of him going back on his word and taking a mind slave for a week and a half. All I'm getting is that it's okay as long as it's not a party member, and "Hey it got the job done."


Would it be wrong to have everyone who's replied with like comments about how it's okay take a step towards evil? Basically the group as a whole taking a step in the direction for one guys actions. What do you playgrounders think?

[BWR]

All it takes for evil to flourish is for good people to do nothing.
These spells are not by their nature evil. I would argue that excessive use of mind-messing abilities is a chaotic bordering on evil act, even if you don't actually use them for evil. You are basically making people into your puppets, and removing agency from people is usually considered a bad thing.

For a one time action, unless Suggestion/Dominate were used for evil purposes, there isn't really a reason to smack them with alignment shifts. The reasoning behind it 'for the greater good' is actually a valid argument in D&DE, up to a point. 'As long as it's not us' is the important bit. This is Chaotic, and depending on how far they take it, evil. 'It's ok to steal from everyone but us' is chaotic. 'It's ok to routinely mind-rape people into doing whatever we want to so long as you don't target us' is evil.

[Scow2]

All it takes for evil to flourish is for good people to do nothing.
These spells are not by their nature evil. I would argue that excessive use of mind-messing abilities is a chaotic bordering on evil act, even if you don't actually use them for evil. You are basically making people into your puppets, and removing agency from people is usually considered a bad thing.

For a one time action, unless Suggestion/Dominate were used for evil purposes, there isn't really a reason to smack them with alignment shifts. The reasoning behind it 'for the greater good' is actually a valid argument in D&DE, up to a point. 'As long as it's not us' is the important bit. This is Chaotic, and depending on how far they take it, evil. 'It's ok to steal from everyone but us' is chaotic. 'It's ok to routinely mind-rape people into doing whatever we want to so long as you don't target us' is evil.

No, those AREN'T chaotic attitudes. Those are evil attitudes (Usually tempered with a lot of more altruistic qualifications). Chaotic isn't a lighter form of evil. In fact, most Compulsions are Lawful, if anything.

[RandomNPC]

A bit more history:

The wizard has used suggestion to ask a party member to stop trying to come up with a catch phrase and talk of more serious suggestions on said player have come up. The suggestion used on the halfling was equivalent to "Sorry we attacked, come back and talk to us, we'll listen" and as soon as she was as close as her mount would get he called for the party to open fire.

Talking to him, the Dominated person is going to stay that way, he has no intention of letting her go. She's going to be ordered to not resist his spells and will be re-dominated often. At the least she's a front line throw away body guard but he may try to body snatch with Magic Jar.

He's open about his intentions if anyone asks, and has told two party members "Your continued existence is currently of benefit to me, I'll keep you around for a while yet, as long as you're useful."

I'm trying to get a feel for the "Should the party shift?" question, because it's been building up with minor things like this. He has no familiar, he has a skeleton decked out in full armor, helm and all, so nobody knows it's undead. He forged a contract saying it's a loyal minion who wanted to dedicate life to him. Nobody questions this, the party healer thinks he's got a rare condition that makes positive and negative energy work backwards on the minion.

I guess I'm also asking, is my group blind to evil if another player is doing it? and how do I spell it out without spelling it out?

[Amnestic]

He's open about his intentions if anyone asks, and has told two party members "Your continued existence is currently of benefit to me, I'll keep you around for a while yet, as long as you're useful."

The guy may as well have outright stated "I'm going to kill you/Dominate you/Do horrible things to you...eventually. Just an FYI." Evil or not, that's not the sort of thing a successful adventurer is okay with.

[Water_Bear]

I think people underestimate the importance of inaction on alignment; Players tend to assume that if they aren't doing something it's all on the other guy. That's a perfectly valid rationalization for a character to have, but as I told my brother when his until-then NG character stood by silently watching a cultist get tortured to death for information he didn't have, not doing something can be just as important as the reverse. So feel free to knock everyone down a peg or two on the Alignment Chart.

What is more concerning though is the way this PC is interacting with the rest of the group. I am of the opinion that there's no reason not to allow Evil PCs into a Good or Neutral party, provided they can actually be a team player. Don't hog the spotlight, don't PK if you can possibly avoid it, don't cause enough trouble for the party that they would kill you if you were an NPC, and don't skeeze anyone out. In my view, there's no reason even a Chaotic Evil PC couldn't get on well in a party; between rational self-interest (which naked statements of self interest tend to violate BTW) and feelings of friendship/love/lust/grudging respect for other PCs they shouldn't be any harder to fit into an average party than a Paladin or Druid.

TL;DR: My advice is to knock the whole party down one step towards Evil and tell the Evil PC to start playing his Int score before the party turns on him.

[Angel Bob]

I would say "rational decisions" fall under Wisdom rather than Intelligence.

But yeah, Good-aligned characters (assuming their players actually roleplay) can't just stand by and watch evil occur without trying to stop it. Of course, though every party has a Belkar, this doesn't have to lead to an intra-party conflict or the entire party's corruption.

Neutral-aligned characters, like the majority of my group, get off a bit easier. "If it's not me, it's all right" and "It gets the job done" are attitudes far more common of Neutral alignments. That's how the group I DM for tolerates the presence of their Belkar. (Of course, the main part is that they're too casual to roleplay; the only time anyone's actually gotten mad at him is when he broke one of their magic items by accident while trying to bludgeon another PC into unconsciousness.)

[Scow2]

TL;DR: My advice is to knock the whole party down one step towards Evil and tell the Evil PC to start playing his Int score before the party turns on him.

He is playing his INT score - And in case you missed it, the evil party member is trying to see how far he can go before the rest of the party turns on him and kicks his ass.

Of course, I'd not want to play with such a player in any of my campaigns, because he's deliberately trying to break the group/party dynamic. A lot of gamers would rather give other players the benefit of the doubt/freedom to play up a less savory alignment instead of trying to be "Party Police." - Only the party paladin likes the party paladin.