Neutral/Evil alignment

[HoboKnight]

Hey guys,
I know that alignment threads usually end up in 100+ posts with no real resolution, but as a DM I
have a real conundrum on my hands and I'd appreciate an advice.

2 events:
- my party approached a ruined castle and upon the tower, there were 4 crows. Player A asked if they look "fishy" and he rolled Nature check, figuring that these crows look and act a bit too organised (crows were wereravens, observing the party approaching from distance). Player A decided to fire an arrow at each of the crows(single round, 4 attacks), almost killing each of them, crows fled

- party was in another location and establishment, party was suspicious about its inhabitants, has cast Divine sense and several of the staff pinged as fiends and undead under cover of Seeming spell. Party was informed by these fiends and undead that "a monster" has occupied local pool within an establishment and should be killed. Party approached the pool and player A, without checking what "the monster" is ("monster" was hiding in a murky pool) fired several volleys in the pool, killing a naiad, who was hiding in a pool.
Oopsie.

Thus I switched As alignment to evil (instantly attacking/killing non hostile and non-inherently evil creatures like fiends and undead).

But, was my decision justified?

After the session we talked about it and we came to an example of modern day military troops clearing a settlement. In a settlement, there are armed oponents, but civillians too. The question was, should troops check the inside of the buildings, before tossing a bunch of hand grenades in them. As per view of player B, tossing grenades in each of the houses is a Neutral deed. Opponents are in the settlement, if grenades kill and maim a bunch of civillians, too bad, but not an evil act. Especially if checking buildings before tossing grenades, exposes military troops to potential harm.

I disagreed, but also added, military also has flash-bang grenades that do not kill, but stun. B disagreed, even as I emphasised that dealing subdual damage in 5e exists. B was persisting "what if you do not have flash bangs"? Anyway, you do.

Is such "shoot first without checking" an evil deed?

Thanks

[Millstone85]

There is a lot in this post that I am rather afraid to discuss, but...

has cast Divine sense and several of the staff pinged as fiends and undead under cover of Seeming spell. Party was informed by these fiends and undead that "a monster" has occupied local pool within an establishment and should be killed.

There might be a discussion to have on whether undead, wereravens and/or naiads should be considered monstrous, both in-universe and from the players' perspective. But accepting a quest from fiends, literal embodiments of the evil alignments, after identifying them as such? Easy ground for shifting the whole party to said alignments, IMO.

[MoiMagnus]

Is such "shoot first without checking" an evil deed?

Part of the answer will depends on the overhaul dangerosity of the universe. Do peoples often die of monster attacks?

Are magical creature disguising as mundane animals before murdering you in your sleep a common fear, or is the common wisdom more "live and let live"?

If the monster was dangerous, would "checking first" have likely resulted in them escaping and killing additional peoples?

(Also, make sure that the players are aware of the dangerosity of the universe. Their characters were born in it, they know it.)

Another part of the answer comes from "what is evil?". Is it the case that one third of humans are evil, and a lot of evil peoples are "sure, he is kind of a jerk with strangers but when you know him he can be quite nice to tag along" ir something similar? Or is evil alignment something that prove you did something so evil you should probably be imprisoned and/or executed if it is ever detected.

[Maryring]

Event 1 might not be evil. More neutral. After all, as you describe it, the player had already discovered that the birds weren't normal birds. If they had prior knowledge that they had foes around trying to spy on them, I can't call them evil for trying to take out the metaphorical eyes of their foes.

Everything else though? Totally evil. Bump em into the black. Carelessly killing civilians is one of the definitions of evil in DnD.

[Anymage]

First let me ask you if you have a habit of having seemingly innocuous encounters turn into threats. If every bat the players have encountered so far was in some form of service to a vampire, don't be surprised if your players start attacking bats on sight. That's a table habit thing, not a morality discussion.

Leaving that aside, you're starting to see why a lot of people ignore alignment because it can power the same sorts of discussions that political and religious talk usually do. What's more important is the degree to which PC murderhoboism is bothering you, either through actively evil acts or just due to slowing down plots by attacking things at random. If either is the case, talk to the player and point out that it's uncool. You're totally free to institute an alignment switch for happily accepting a quest from fiends with no second thoughts. That's character behavior drawing character consequences and you're ultimately the final arbiter for everything in this world. Disruptive behavior is a table problem and should be dealt with OOC.

[Unoriginal]

Event 1 might not be evil. More neutral. After all, as you describe it, the player had already discovered that the birds weren't normal birds. If they had prior knowledge that they had foes around trying to spy on them, I can't call them evil for trying to take out the metaphorical eyes of their foes.

Everything else though? Totally evil. Bump em into the black. Carelessly killing civilians is one of the definitions of evil in DnD.

Have to agree with this.

But accepting a quest from fiends, literal embodiments of the evil alignments, after identifying them as such? Easy ground for shifting the whole party to said alignments, IMO.

I mean that depends the kind of quest.

If a disguised Devil tells you "Duke Latemore is going to sacrifice orphans on Lonebury Hill to summon a Demon Prince, you must stop his nepharious plans", and you see through the disguise, I don't think going "nice try Devil but since you're the one who give this quest, rescuing those orphans and stopping that summoning would be evil" is a wise conclusion.

But yeah, when a Fiend gives you a quest, you have to be careful about a) that the information given are truthful b) do your best to not be used in a larger scheme for the Fiend's benefit.

Is such "shoot first without checking" an evil deed?

The important thing to note is that the PCs *did* check the quest givers, and as it turns out they knew the quest givers were deceiving them by pretending to not be Fiends, and could also have been deceiving them on the rest.

So it's not that the PC didn't have any info and shot rather than wait to gather more, it's that the PC did have the info to know it was likely a malevolent scheme and still did it.

[Mastikator]

TBH taking a quest from creatures you know are fiends/undeads unquestioningly pretty much puts you in league with them. I don't really care if they try to convince you that there is some bigger bad out there. I'm tempted to say that a good party would've killed the fiends and undead in the establishment and then investigated their "monster" claim.

[Vahnavoi]

It would help if you specified an edition, since alignment works differently in different version of D&D. I'll stick to first edition of AD&D for my part. Let's start with the really easy part:

But, was my decision justified?

If you are the dungeon master for your game, setting the boundaries for law, chaos, good and evil is your job. Your word is final for your game and campaign, it is the real resolution.

This said, there are some details of the written rules that you might want to take to consideration. Namely: individual acts aren't supposed to cause immediate alignment shift, unless they are blatant and extreme, and alignment shouldn't move from one extreme to another based on a single act. Exceptions exists for supernatural forces such as Helm of Opposite Alignment, but that's another thing entirely. To paraphrase an example from the books: a Lawful Evil character helping a slave revolution might justifiably move them to Neutral Evil or Lawful Neutral, depending on whether they are doing so out of self-interest (chaotic act) or sympathy for the enslaved (good act), but they should never move directly to Chaotic Good.

So, in line with those rules, a Good character should only drop to Neutral at most, and a Neutral should likely drop to Evil only after several incidents such as these. Remember, there is room to move within each alignment category: a person can be basically good in their neutrality, or basically evil. Especially when talking about starting character alignment, a character is presumed to have had their beliefs for a fairly long time, so adjustments should also happen over a long time and multiple actions.

Now to the individual cases. Case A:

- my party approached a ruined castle and upon the tower, there were 4 crows. Player A asked if they look "fishy" and he rolled Nature check, figuring that these crows look and act a bit too organised (crows were wereravens, observing the party approaching from distance). Player A decided to fire an arrow at each of the crows(single round, 4 attacks), almost killing each of them, crows fled.

No alignment in D&D is pacifist - or to put it another way, every alignment has some justifiable case for using lethal violence. Here, the question is: did the "fishy" behaviour by the crows pose or suggest any threat to life and happiness of the player characters?

If yes, then the act would be justifiable even for a Good character. For example, being in enemy territory, and thus reasonably suspecting these crows to be spies, would be an adequate justification. Since none of the crows died, it could be passed of as a warning shot. The trick, though, is that even if it's justifiable from an alignment standpoint, it's still an act of war. There is no reason for the wereravens to be happy about it.

If no, then it's unprovoked act of war. This can be argued to be an Evil act, the shooter is causing harm and suffering prematurely. However, it's not such a major Evil act that it should immediately cause an alignment shift.

On to Case B:

- party was in another location and establishment, party was suspicious about its inhabitants, has cast Divine sense and several of the staff pinged as fiends and undead under cover of Seeming spell. Party was informed by these fiends and undead that "a monster" has occupied local pool within an establishment and should be killed. Party approached the pool and player A, without checking what "the monster" is ("monster" was hiding in a murky pool) fired several volleys in the pool, killing a naiad, who was hiding in a pool.
Oopsie.

There are two things going on here. Let's contrast this scenario with a simpler one: a party is informed by villager that there is a monster in a pool. They kill it and find out it's something harmless, such as the naiad, or perhaps someone's pet dog. Here, in theory the player character has a good justification: a "monster" could reasonably threaten life and happiness of everyone in the village. The mistake is jumping the gun and not checking the facts of the situation, leading to avoidable harm and suffering. This can be argued to be an Evil act, but it's also a mistake, so should not lead to alignment change. An exception can be made if no regret is displayed: an honestly Good character would show remorse and seek atonement. The spell, Atonement, exists to cover these kind of scenarios, when an alignment change would threaten supernatural repercussions (namely Paladins, Clerics and Druids losing their standing).

In the more complex scenario, the player character already has a reason to suspect what the villager says. At this point, shooting first and asking later is not only jumping the gun, it is willfull negligence. The character not only lacks a good justification for violence, they would have a justification for delaying it. So, an evil act, and not capable of being atoned for. I maybe wouldn't drop a Neutral character to Evil just for this, but I would definitely move them in that direction.

Case C:

After the session we talked about it and we came to an example of modern day military troops clearing a settlement. In a settlement, there are armed oponents, but civillians too. The question was, should troops check the inside of the buildings, before tossing a bunch of hand grenades in them. As per view of player B, tossing grenades in each of the houses is a Neutral deed. Opponents are in the settlement, if grenades kill and maim a bunch of civillians, too bad, but not an evil act. Especially if checking buildings before tossing grenades, exposes military troops to potential harm.

I disagreed, but also added, military also has flash-bang grenades that do not kill, but stun. B disagreed, even as I emphasised that dealing subdual damage in 5e exists. B was persisting "what if you do not have flash bangs"? Anyway, you do.

Is such "shoot first without checking" an evil deed?

Thanks

In the modern day, and under modern terms, it is at all times forbidden to direct attacks against civilians; indeed, to attack civilians intentionally while aware of their civilian status is a war crime. It is thus an imperative duty for an attacker to identify and distinguish non-combatants from combatants in every situation.

This matters for 1st edition Alignment, because Lawful Good is defined in terms of natural rights utilitarianism: so at least one flavor of Good explicitly acknowledges human rights, or as the books say, in context of D&D, creature rights. Now, the context for D&D is still explicitly non-modern - again, no alignment is pacifist, every alignment has some justifiable case for using lethal violence. Even a Paladin can execute criminals and wage wars. Indiscriminate slaughter is still fairly straightforwardly not Good.

Now, the point brought up by player B is still relevant: what is justifiable depends on what is possible. For example: a Paladin might be justified in killing a bunch of baby monsters in the crib. Why? Because it's beyond their capability to take care of those monsters: they would starve and die anyway, suffering more in the interim. Similarly: a soldier who doesn't have non-lethal weaponry might be justified in using lethal weaponry, if said lethal weaponry is the only thing they have at hand that can stop further harm. So there are cases where a soldier chugging grenades into houses without checking could maintain neutrality - keeping in mind that Neutral is not Good and so is allowed more transgression - but it's still a long shot. The more options a character has, the less plausible this kind of justification becomes - at some point, the line of willfull negligence is crossed once again. Somebody generally waging war in this manner would definitely be Evil.

[Jason]

- my party approached a ruined castle and upon the tower, there were 4 crows. Player A asked if they look "fishy" and he rolled Nature check, figuring that these crows look and act a bit too organised (crows were wereravens, observing the party approaching from distance). Player A decided to fire an arrow at each of the crows(single round, 4 attacks), almost killing each of them, crows fled.

The player didn't know they were "people" in the form of wereravens. They might have been familiars of evil wizards or enchanted evil birds or something similar. I would call this is a bit reckless, but not outright evil. Probably neutral.

If the players find out later that those were LG wereravens and that they seriously wounded people who meant them no harm, then the good-aligned party members should do their best to cure them and apologize.

- party was in another location and establishment, party was suspicious about its inhabitants, has cast Divine sense and several of the staff pinged as fiends and undead under cover of Seeming spell. Party was informed by these fiends and undead that "a monster" has occupied local pool within an establishment and should be killed. Party approached the pool and player A, without checking what "the monster" is ("monster" was hiding in a murky pool) fired several volleys in the pool, killing a naiad, who was hiding in a pool.
Oopsie.

If you know that they are fiends then you know they're up to no good. Actually carrying out the job they offer you (rather than just playing along to find out what they are up to and investigating what is actually in the pool before trying to kill it) is then an evil act.

Would it be enough to change the party's alignment? That depends on what alignment they started with and how close they've been playing to the edges of their alignments before they did this.

After the session we talked about it and we came to an example of modern day military troops clearing a settlement. In a settlement, there are armed oponents, but civillians too. The question was, should troops check the inside of the buildings, before tossing a bunch of hand grenades in them. As per view of player B, tossing grenades in each of the houses is a Neutral deed. Opponents are in the settlement, if grenades kill and maim a bunch of civillians, too bad, but not an evil act. Especially if checking buildings before tossing grenades, exposes military troops to potential harm.

If you know the officers who gave you the orders to clear the buildings are Evil, as the players did in this case, then you had better check the buildings to see who is really in them before tossing grenades in.

[Biggus]

The important thing to note is that the PCs *did* check the quest givers, and as it turns out they knew the quest givers were deceiving them by pretending to not be Fiends, and could also have been deceiving them on the rest.

So it's not that the PC didn't have any info and shot rather than wait to gather more, it's that the PC did have the info to know it was likely a malevolent scheme and still did it.

This is the key point as far as I can see, the players had every reason to suspect the information they were given wasn't true, and yet they murdered the target without checking anyway. At the very least they are guilty of gross negligence. I would definitely change a good player's alignment who did this.

As per view of player B, tossing grenades in each of the houses is a Neutral deed.

Wow, that is a terrible argument, bordering on psychopathic. I would genuinely be a bit worried about this person if I knew them. Knowingly killing civilians to avoid exposing yourself to the risk of harm is very much an evil act. By their logic, destroying the world if you can do so without risk to yourself isn't an evil act because doing so means you kill all the evil people, who cares that you've also killed all the good and neutral people as well? Good grief.

[JusticeZero]

There's other interpretations of Evil. Last time I used alignment — and it's been a hot minute — it literally measured connection to a combination of the evil aligned outer planes and the negative material plane. Habitually using certain spells would change your detected alignment — not your actual behavior, but if you used a lot of healing spells, you would always ping Good regardless of how many puppies you kicked, and if you used Harm spells or summoned imps often to save kittens from burning buildings, you would ping Evil. Every pantheon seemingly has some personage who audits your soul after you die, and why would that role exist if it wasn't necessary to actually do the accounting and correct for the weird splash effects?

[Unoriginal]

There's other interpretations of Evil.

Certainly, but since OP is playing 5e and hasn't indicated anything about using a different alignment system than the 5e one, we should use that one to reach a conclusion.


In consequence, the alignment of PC A is something that "broadly describes its moral and personal attitudes", and that's it.

Now, checking the alignments, we have:

Lawful good (LG) creatures can be counted on to do the right thing as expected by society.

Knowingly serving Fiends to kill a creature disqualify the possibility of this alignment.

Neutral good (NG) folk do the best they can to help others according to their needs.

Didn't happen here.

Chaotic good (CG) creatures act as their conscience directs, with little regard for what others expect.

One's conscience wouldn't tell them to trust Fiends without question or kill beings without checking.

Lawful neutral (LN) individuals act in accordance with law, tradition, or personal codes.

Unless a personal code was compelling PC A here, it doesn't apply.

Neutral (N) is the alignment of those who prefer to steer clear of moral questions and don't take sides, doing what seems best at the time.

Killing a being for a known Fiend is taking a side. So can't be that.

Chaotic neutral (CN) creatures follow their whims, holding their personal freedom above all else.

Technically could qualify, with a big "but look at the other alignments first".

Lawful evil (LE) creatures methodically take what they want, within the limits of a code of tradition, loyalty, or order.

It doesn't seem that PC A was being methodical or following the limits of a code of tradition, loyalty or order.

Neutral evil (NE) is the alignment of those who do whatever they can get away with, without compassion or qualms.

Well, PC A certainly acted without compassion or qualms, and did whatever he could get away with.

Chaotic evil (CE) creatures act with arbitrary violence, spurred by their greed, hatred, or bloodlust.

PC A certainly acted with violence, though how arbitrary it is could hypothetically be debated (since it was a targeted mission). Their act wasn't spurred by hatred, but greed or bloodlust could have been motivators.


So out of 9 alignments, PC A's action fits neutral evil or chaotic evil the best. Chaotic neutral might technically be on the table, but that'd require the PC to attack a living being and use lethal force on a whim without bloodlust, and without being motivated by the reward offered for the killing.

[viking vince]

When I play with alignment, it means something. A creature or NPC does not get an Evil alignment because they are misunderstood. You EARN an evil alignment based on prior actions, and ridding the world of evil is defiantly a good action.

That said, it is also possibly an illegal action and extremely Chaotic. If I felt alignment change for the PC was justified, it likely would have went that way.

[Unoriginal]

When I play with alignment, it means something. A creature or NPC does not get an Evil alignment because they are misunderstood. You EARN an evil alignment based on prior actions, and ridding the world of evil is defiantly a good action.

The PC in the OP didn't rid the world of any evil, though?

The whole group decided to help evil beings (who have earned their evil alignment based on prior actions), knowing who they were. And PC A decided to kill the creature in the pool without any information except "those fiends who lied to us about their identity told us it was a monster".

[King of Nowhere]

to harm others because it is convenient for you is evil.
shooting first against targets that are not clearly hostile, just because they might possibly be hostile, definitely qualifies. shooting blindly without seeing what you're shooting, just because you have an inkling that you may hit a foe there, is evil. evil is always justified by practicality - unless we're talking the really over the top EVIL stuff. but if we confine to regular evil, or most Evil, or even some EVIL, it is benefical to the one doing it. that's why most people do evil.
by intentionally choosing to attack some random creatures nearby just because maybe they could be foes, he is displaying evil behavior.
and regardless of alignment, i'd feel perfectly justified in attacking him on sight: he has a proven record of killing stuff nearby on a whim just because it's slightly more expedite, so I am totally justified in feeling threatened by him, so I can shoot first.
this kind of madness is why self defence laws don't generally accept "i felt threatened" as a good justification to attack first. like, my campaign world had an evil nation that was great on social darwinism and had very liberal self-defence laws, which includes permission to kill a beggar asking you charity (he's trying to take your money), or killing someone who was walking on the public road without having paid the fees for it (he was stealing from all honest customers, including you), but even they would not accept those filmsy excuses. In fact, if that player stood trial in despotonia (the name of that country), the most likely outcome would be the judge or a member of the jury taking out a gun and executing him on the spot, claiming self-defence because that guy was too dangerous to allow to roam around. And THAT interpretation of self-defence would actually pass. the crowd would cheer.

now, in this fantasy world where a bird could act7ally be a shapeshifted druid trying to ambush you i can accept some leeway depending on circumstances, but the examples provided defnitely don't fit. and any spellcaster who regularly polymorphs into a bird may feel actively threatened by your player and feel justified in attacking him first to remove the threat. that... may or may not pass under despotonian law, depending mostly on how much one bribes the judge.

After the session we talked about it and we came to an example of modern day military troops clearing a settlement. In a settlement, there are armed oponents, but civillians too. The question was, should troops check the inside of the buildings, before tossing a bunch of hand grenades in them. As per view of player B, tossing grenades in each of the houses is a Neutral deed. Opponents are in the settlement, if grenades kill and maim a bunch of civillians, too bad, but not an evil act. Especially if checking buildings before tossing grenades, exposes military troops to potential harm.

I disagreed, but also added, military also has flash-bang grenades that do not kill, but stun. B disagreed, even as I emphasised that dealing subdual damage in 5e exists. B was persisting "what if you do not have flash bangs"? Anyway, you do.

ah, dangerous ground here. but my take (i would give the take of international laws, but that would be against forum rules; my judgment is not against rules, and it's close enough to those laws anyway):
A) hitting civilians on purpose is a big NO
B) hitting civilians because you suspect enemy soldiers are hiding among them is still a NO, but a smaller one - depending on how reasonable was your intelligence on the enemy being hiding there. In some cases it can be a genuine mistake.
C) hiding among civilians, refusing to evacuate those civilians, or otherwise using them indirectly or directly as human shields is a big NO and reverts the responsibility. if your enemies are shooting from a house and there are civilians in that house, you can fire freely, and whatever happens to the civilians is the enemy's fault
C2) Of course, if your enemies are trying to evacuate civilians and you are interfering with that, then the responsibility reverts back on you. there can be some grey cases here where the enemy is moving military convoys in the same roads as the evacuating civilians
D) if the civilians are given chance to safely evacuate but refuse it, then whatever harm they suffer is on them. they made their choice, they took responsibility
E) hitting military targets that contain civilians by necessity, like for example striking a weapon factory that will have civilian workers in it, is sad but OK. war is hell, we can try to make it slightly less hellish by avoiding bombing of population centers, but in the end we can't reasonably blame one side for hitting a weapons factory, and we can't reasonably blame the other side for having civilian workers in that factory.

Both cases you told us are clearly case B, and in both cases the reasons for suspecting were rather tenuous. this is clearly a case of "i don't care how much collateral damage I may deal, as long as it's slightly safer for me". which is, again, evil. accepting a murder quest from fiends without double-checking if what they told is true is just the icing on the cake.

Wow, that is a terrible argument, bordering on psychopathic. I would genuinely be a bit worried about this person if I knew them. Knowingly killing civilians to avoid exposing yourself to the risk of harm is very much an evil act. By their logic, destroying the world if you can do so without risk to yourself isn't an evil act because doing so means you kill all the evil people, who cares that you've also killed all the good and neutral people as well? Good grief.

yes, that too.

[NichG]

I tend not to use alignment at all, but if I do use alignment then I always look at it from the point of view of in-setting beings (even if they're ineffable forces rather than specific deities) choosing how to relate to the characters on the basis of witnessing how those characters live their life.

So I shouldn't see moving someone towards evil as a way to punish something that I as DM consider a misbehavior. It shouldn't be about 'would I have preferred if you acted differently, from an out-of-character viewpoint?'. Instead, it should be e.g. 'when this cleric of Selune uses Detect Good on you, it returns false because she really likes non-evil lycanthropes and you attacked beings she liked out of the blue, and to her that matters more than your justifications; but you're still detecting as Good to clerics of Tyr. And you're shining particularly brightly to Helm's clerics for the next while because he liked how watchful and alert you were!'. Or, on killing the naiad, maybe even 'The Good deities aren't going to turn their backs on you just for that, but Bhaal really loved that and is sending a lot of Evil energies your way to reward your action. More like that! he says'

That also tends to sidestep some of the out of character 'are you calling me evil, because I thought this act was fine?!' kinds of reactions. "No, but given Selune's portfolio and interests, you've offended her." or "No, but the ineffable force that people label as Good only associates its energies with a strictly delineated category of being and behavior and, reasonable or justified or not, it considers that action outside of that category'. It's also helpful because it makes you look at the actions from the point of view of in-setting forces, rather than from your own perspective of 'do I find that action offensive according to my own moral compass?'

[Unoriginal]

C) hiding among civilians, refusing to evacuate those civilians, or otherwise using them indirectly or directly as human shields is a big NO and reverts the responsibility. if your enemies are shooting from a house and there are civilians in that house, you can fire freely, and whatever happens to the civilians is the enemy's fault

A soldier who shoot a civilian who's being used as human shield is still held responsible/liable for shooting a civilian.

There's a reason why the enemies taking hostages can stall a military operation for a long time.

So I shouldn't see moving someone towards evil as a way to punish something that I as DM consider a misbehavior. It shouldn't be about 'would I have preferred if you acted differently, from an out-of-character viewpoint?'

I'm not sure about the rest of your post, but this part I agree with at 100%, and I think it is very important to underline it and explain it to the players if they don't get it.

A PC's alignment shifting toward evil isn't a punishment, nor is a PC's alignment shifting toward good a reward.

Alignments in 5e are descriptors for typical behavior, so a shift is just the description staying accurate to the shift in behavior or becoming more accurate.

[JusticeZero]

I despise alignment arguments. People overthink it. It's a horrible system and people put too much philosophical weight on what, in D&D, is treated as a property of a material like density or mass or conductivity.

Also, to whoever sneered at me that they were discussing D&D... so was I.

[Vahnavoi]

A PC's alignment shifting toward evil isn't a punishment, nor is a PC's alignment shifting toward good a reward.

As a commentary on this, in 1st edition AD&D, there are punishments for changing alignment, but these are situational, and can apply for shift into any direction (a Cleric of an Evil deity can get punished for becoming Good, a Druid can be punished for becoming anything other than True Neutral, etc.). The idea of alignment shift itself being a punishment stems from 2nd Edition AD&D, which codified the idea that playing Evil characters is special form of naughty and generally shouldn't be done, and subsequent player culture where Evil player characters became equated with bad play and often banned outright.

Outside of D&D, there's an entire genre of games where scoring enough Evil points removes a character from play. In such games, the alignment shift is a punishment, effectively the same as a penalty card system. The joke is that in such games, it's perfectly normal for a player to just eat an occasional penalty for tactical reasons. The same is true for version of D&D alignment where Evil alignment is penalized but doesn't stop a character from being played - a player can just happily accept the consequences of their actions and keep going.

[King of Nowhere]

A soldier who shoot a civilian who's being used as human shield is still held responsible/liable for shooting a civilian.

There's a reason why the enemies taking hostages can stall a military operation for a long time.

I did specify the answers were according to my moral compass* and not international law, because discussing international law and similar real world arguments is forbidden in this forum.




* though that is less about morality and more about practicality: if somebody grabs a human shield and is rewarded for this behavior, we can expect more people to do the same. I'd rather discourage hostage taking instead

[Witty Username]

How often does this come up?
How difficult do you want being good to be?

I feel neutral is pretty justifable, I personally am of the mind that preemptive aggression based on dubious sources is evil feeling but apart from that, this seems more like aggression while under threat, which just sorta is.

If you want good to be a bit challenging, yeah go with evil, after all anyone can respond to danger with aggression, it is harder to respond to danger without aggression. Otherwise, I would be more inclined if this represented a pattern of behavior.

Incident 2 comes off as an evil act, definitely, but it is up to you how much it is the path to the darkside.

Hm, be aware that I haven't had to think about this recently. I switched to player controlled alignment a bit ago, so it is more a play aid for them then a thing as DM I enforce.

[Jason]

As a commentary on this, in 1st edition AD&D, there are punishments for changing alignment, but these are situational, and can apply for shift into any direction (a Cleric of an Evil deity can get punished for becoming Good, a Druid can be punished for becoming anything other than True Neutral, etc.).

The punishment in 1st edition was "lose a level". Unless you were a paladin, then the punishment was "lose a level and permanently lose paladin status."

The idea of alignment shift itself being a punishment stems from 2nd Edition AD&D, which codified the idea that playing Evil characters is special form of naughty and generally shouldn't be done, and subsequent player culture where Evil player characters became equated with bad play and often banned outright.

Even in 1st edition the players were presumed to be generally on the side of good in all the published modules.

Outside of D&D, there's an entire genre of games where scoring enough Evil points removes a character from play. In such games, the alignment shift is a punishment, effectively the same as a penalty card system.

D&D itself has this as the default rule for lycanthropes and undead.

I can think of several others off the top of my head: All the Star Wars RPGs, Call of Cthulhu and it's derivatives, The One Ring (either edition), and Legend of the Five Rings. They have options for playing evil characters, but the default rule is that if you get corrupted too far you're an NPC.

[Vahnavoi]

The punishment in 1st edition was "lose a level". Unless you were a paladin, then the punishment was "lose a level and permanently lose paladin status."

Correct, I forgot that part.

Even in 1st edition the players were presumed to be generally on the side of good in all the published modules.

That's a separate issue. Base rules in 1st edition still allowed for Evil characters and even used them as examples, such as when explaining how alignment change works. Compare and contrast magic item rules: the base rules recommend careful rationing of them, but modules became infamous for having too many. It's an example of content drift, where supplemental material adds unevenly to the original. Though it's possible some of the modules were also affected by the same social pressures that lead to the changes in 2nd edition, serving as precursor to it.

[King of Nowhere]

on the other hand, regardless of the evilness of alignment, i do agree that if such actions disturb you, you should just ask the player to stop. punishing him in game is an ic solution to an ooc problem, and those never worlk

[Anymage]

I feel neutral is pretty justifable, I personally am of the mind that preemptive aggression based on dubious sources is evil feeling but apart from that, this seems more like aggression while under threat, which just sorta is.

How good does your intel have to be before arbitrary aggression becomes justified preemptive aggression? Many fiends and undead can disguise themselves as normal people, but arbitrarily stabbing everybody you meet because they might be a disguised fiend is a pretty quick way to an evil alignment. (If you have reason to suspect fiendish activity but there are still a good number of innocent people around, stabbing on a hair trigger is a very tricky moral dilemma and still probably on the darker half of the alignment chart.)

I will grant that there can be a level of DMs priming players here. If every child who approaches the party winds up being a disguised fiend, pattern recognition can lead to them being justifiably skeptical of the 26th child who approaches them and take preemptive action. Hobo Knight has said a lot about his game and I don't remember hearing about seemingly innocuous creatures suddenly turning into dangerous ambushes, so even the act of attacking the ravens with intent to kill (as opposed to an act designed to drive them off without attempted killing) is at least evil tinged.

[gbaji]

2 events:
- my party approached a ruined castle and upon the tower, there were 4 crows. Player A asked if they look "fishy" and he rolled Nature check, figuring that these crows look and act a bit too organised (crows were wereravens, observing the party approaching from distance). Player A decided to fire an arrow at each of the crows(single round, 4 attacks), almost killing each of them, crows fled

That's a bit of an odd reaction, but I don't see anything particularly alignment worthy going on. I'm assuming that shooting at normal crows is not an evil act, so shooting at something pretending to be a crow would not be either.

And, as a couple posters have already stated, how strange this reaction is depends on the setting. If the party is constantly encountering things that appear to be one thing, but are really something else (and a dangerous something else where if they don't take some kind of action they will be punished in some way), then it's not unreasonable at all for the player to do that.

- party was in another location and establishment, party was suspicious about its inhabitants, has cast Divine sense and several of the staff pinged as fiends and undead under cover of Seeming spell. Party was informed by these fiends and undead that "a monster" has occupied local pool within an establishment and should be killed. Party approached the pool and player A, without checking what "the monster" is ("monster" was hiding in a murky pool) fired several volleys in the pool, killing a naiad, who was hiding in a pool.
Oopsie.

I'm kinda of two minds about this one.

On the one hand, the party absolutely should have checked what this "monster" actually was before just blasting it to death.

On the other hand, you (meaning the GM) clearly set this entire thing up to "trick the party into killing an innocent being". Apparently you succeeded. Is that really the PCs fault?


Which leads me to questioning exactly what went on here. You kinda gloss over the whole bit about them casting a spell and realizing that the staff were fiends and undead. What did they do in response? Did they discuss this at all? Did they know that these fiends were the ones who sent them to kill the monster? I'm just having a hard time accepting that they went in there, were suspcious enough about the inhabitants to cast a spell to reveal their nature to them, discovered that they were fiends and undead, but then still blithely agreed to a task these presumably evil beings had just set them on. I suspect there was more to the story than you are telling us in this post. Did they know that the folks who gave them the task to kill the monster were the fiends and undead they had detected? Did the PC who cast the spell inform the rest of the party of this fact?


Dunno. Something doesn't pass the smell test here for me. They are so suspicious of random crows that they check them out to see if they're natural, and then attack when they discover they are not. They are so suspicious of random people in an establishment that they cast a spell and discover that they are fiends and undead. But then they do nothing about the fiends and undead, and trust them explicitely enough to follow their literal instructions to kill something, and in this case, they apparantly aren't suspicious at all about anything and spend no time, effort, skills, or spells to learn what's really going on before just killing something in some water that they can't actually see?

That doesn't seem consistent at all. If your party was just a bunch of murderhoboes then why didn't they attack the fiends and undead the moment they discovered them? And if they are so suspicious that they double check everything they encounter to verify that it is what they seem to be, why suddenly change their MO just with this one naiad? I feel like some parts are missing from the story.


But yes. Just to be complete. If the party members knew that the fiends and undead were evil (are they evil in your game?), and knew therefore that whatever task they told them to do was also probably evil in some way (and discussed this at the table), and they went ahead and did it, without any sort of checking at all, then I might very well adjust their alignment significantly in the evil direction. But this would not just be based on the actions (which is all you've told us here), but based on what the PCs actually knew at the time. If the PCs knew that the folks who gave out the task were evil and likely lying about the monster, and went ahead and did it anyway, then that was them knowingly choosing to help evil and kill something good. If they didn't know, even if from your perspective they should have known, then it was not evil. Dumb? Yes. But I keep going back to the purpose of the entire encounter. You set up a scenario designed to trick the PCs into killing something. The question is "to what degree did you succeed in tricking them?". Because if they were actually tricked, then killing the naiad was a mistake and not evil. If they actually saw through the trick, but then did it anyway, then that's a whole different story.

Is such "shoot first without checking" an evil deed?

It's not really "shoot first without checking" though. If they actually believed that this was a horrible monster in that water, and perhaps that if they delayed in attacking it would move away, or escape, and/or attack and kill more people, then they might have been justified in doing what they did. But I wasn't at the table. I didn't hear the players discussing this, nor do I know what decision making process they went through that lead them to decide to just fire away at the monster in the pool.

As a couple people have observed, if your game regularly involves situations where failing to take quick and decisive action results in evil things escaping and causing more mayhem later, the players may have literally been trained over time to "kill at first opportunity" as a result. Do you put them into situations where waiting to double check something has prevented them from being able to defeat some evil monster or bad guy? IME, when players do things like this, it's usually because they believe this is their best course of action. So the question is "why did the players think they needed to do this?". Did past experience teach them that if they wait for the monster to wake up it'll be much more difficult to deal with (an may even result in party deaths?). Did they have a means handy to check what the "monster" actually was without potentially alerting it to their presence?

Heck. Even just the whole "murky water" bit has me a bit confused. Do naiad's usually hang out in murky water? Or clear? Again. I wasn't in the room, but how much did your description of the situation lead them to believe that whatever was in that pool of water really was an evil monster that needed to be killed? Sometimes minor details can influence player perception, and that perception can significantly affect their decision making.


I try to never punish the players if I manage to successfully trick them in some way. The fact they got tricked into doing something they didn't want to do should be punishment enough. Hitting them with an alignment shift is a bit much IMO (again, I suppose the whole atonement thing exists for this too, but in this case I'd treat it as a RP opportunity and not a firm requirement).

[Witty Username]

How good does your intel have to be before arbitrary aggression becomes justified preemptive aggression?

How I role play it personally? I am generally anti preemptive aggression if 'good' is on that sheet.

The Han shot first scene is actually pretty close what I would use as justification, the danger of Greedo is obvious and immediate but the first move hasn't been taken and waiting for Greedo isn't tenable.

[HoboKnight]

Hey guys,
Thanks for all the answers. A few clarifications:
Its 5e.
How often do I pull such stuff off: rarely. Given the nagging nature of my party, I use only official modules (so I avoid the "you are trying to pull one on us/set us up DM!") and module in question is a chapter from Candlekeep Mysteries (Price of Beauty).
And most interesting: Party is lvl 13 ATM. 4 paladins, 1 optimised ranged fighter. They are BRUTALLY strong (average hp 110, one maxing at 150, average AC 22, dozens upon dozens of magic/radiant damage output per turn, 4 different auras, adamantine armor(no crits), a plethora of spells and a ton of magical gear, 1x Holy Avenger included.). Not just that, two of them have maxxed out their Passive Perception/Passive Insight (24), so for most DCs I just give them the results(example: check vs DC 12 disguised fiends/undead). Yes, in my campaign, 99% of fiends and undead are evil. Smiting a "good" undead would have been an understandeable mistake.

As a "counter argument" B pulled out "what if there was a balor in a pool. We just dont know". At this point, I could have 3 balors in that pool and per stats, party would still wipe them.

Player A just likes to goof off - "look at me being all edgy". And his character was CN before the alignment shift.

Hope this clarifies some of the stuff.

[Anymage]

Given the nagging nature of my party, I use only official modules (so I avoid the "you are trying to pull one on us/set us up DM!") and module in question is a chapter from Candlekeep Mysteries (Price of Beauty).

This right here is a bigger problem than any in-game actions. The players assuming an antagonistic DM who needs to be forced to play "fair" by sticking to modules is going to create a very dysfunctional table dynamic. If they trust you as DM they should trust that you're making a good faith effort on making the game good. If they don't trust you they shouldn't be playing with you. If they just want someone to present a passive and reactive world they can act on, I wonder why they don't just play a video game.

Also, the bits about maxing passive perception/insight raise my skepticism a bit. Does it hinge on Observant and Sentinel Shields? If so, the things I said about them badgering you into strict adherence to modules likely also apply to them badgering you into highly permissive rule interpretations, and I would be completely unsurprised to hear gaming horror stories from you a few years down the line.

[King of Nowhere]

Hey guys,
Thanks for all the answers. A few clarifications:
Its 5e.
How often do I pull such stuff off: rarely. Given the nagging nature of my party, I use only official modules (so I avoid the "you are trying to pull one on us/set us up DM!") and module in question is a chapter from Candlekeep Mysteries (Price of Beauty).
And most interesting: Party is lvl 13 ATM. 4 paladins, 1 optimised ranged fighter. They are BRUTALLY strong (average hp 110, one maxing at 150, average AC 22, dozens upon dozens of magic/radiant damage output per turn, 4 different auras, adamantine armor(no crits), a plethora of spells and a ton of magical gear, 1x Holy Avenger included.). Not just that, two of them have maxxed out their Passive Perception/Passive Insight (24), so for most DCs I just give them the results(example: check vs DC 12 disguised fiends/undead). Yes, in my campaign, 99% of fiends and undead are evil. Smiting a "good" undead would have been an understandeable mistake.

As a "counter argument" B pulled out "what if there was a balor in a pool. We just dont know". At this point, I could have 3 balors in that pool and per stats, party would still wipe them.

Player A just likes to goof off - "look at me being all edgy". And his character was CN before the alignment shift.

Hope this clarifies some of the stuff.

A normal party could pull off the edgy card and claim there were honest mistakes.
but i do feel a party with 4 paladins in it should really try to be better than that.

And by the way, if they are so overpowered while you stick to published modules that assume much weaker characters, don't that make combat laughably easy? and don't that remove the excuse of danger from the players? how are they having fun with such easy combat anyway, are they just enjoying a power trip?

This right here is a bigger problem than any in-game actions. The players assuming an antagonistic DM who needs to be forced to play "fair" by sticking to modules is going to create a very dysfunctional table dynamic. If they trust you as DM they should trust that you're making a good faith effort on making the game good. If they don't trust you they shouldn't be playing with you. If they just want someone to present a passive and reactive world they can act on, I wonder why they don't just play a video game.

Also, the bits about maxing passive perception/insight raise my skepticism a bit. Does it hinge on Observant and Sentinel Shields? If so, the things I said about them badgering you into strict adherence to modules likely also apply to them badgering you into highly permissive rule interpretations, and I would be completely unsurprised to hear gaming horror stories from you a few years down the line.

that too
no, wait. A dm not being allowed to run his own content because the players don't trust him strikes me as already being a horror story right now, not a few years down the line