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| Dan Hemmens04-01-05, 05:55 PM | I have been, thinking about the alignment system, and about whether or not it actually works. More precisely, I have been thinking about what it does, what it is supposed to to, and what it actually does. The alignment system makes no sense as a way of approximating anything aproaching morality or personality. A "good/evil/law/chaos" system has no room for characters with complex motivations, divided loyalties, or anything along those lines. You simply can't fit "ex-mercenary turned loyal king's man, still sometimes yearns for the old days, but only now and then; has a strong mysoginist streak, but is extremely tolerant of foreign cultures; somewhere deep down, a bit of a romantic, but that's buried under some heavy scar tissue" into a two-axis system. The alignment system, however, does work reasonably well as a way of representing traditional fantasy archetypes. Heroes (either stalwart and true LG or roguish CG), villains (LE tyrants, and CE marauders) and extras (LN guardsmen, CN vagabonds). Thought about in this way, it works fine. You can reasonably easily describe people as "hero" and "villain". By extension of this, I'm coming to the conclusion that it isn't actually possible to run a campaign with "Evil" PCs. "Evil" really just means "opposed to the PCs" - that's what a villain is when you get right down to it, somebody on the opposite side to your protagonist. If your PCs are evil, and if they are going to be remotely interesting to actually play, then they are going to have to be complicated enough to be outside the alignment system proper. If your characters really *were* pure fantasy evil, then they wouldn't do anything much apart from rushing groups of heavily armed adventurers and burning down villages for no good reason, which will probably get old fast. Thoughts? |
| Salla04-01-05, 06:42 PM | In a standard D&D world, Good, Evil, Law, and Chaos are not abstract principles. They are extant cosmic forces. It's called 'alignment' because you align yourself to these principles through your actions. It's a variant of the Karma principle; bread cast upon the water returns threefold, and your actions have implications beyond the 'here and now'. Whether it's intended or not, when you perform a good act, you're empowering the force of good. The mistake you're making, IMHO, is assuming that alignment is the end-all and be-all of a personality. Alignments are broad, sweeping categories with LOTS of wiggle room involved. To take your example, "ex-mercenary turned loyal king's man, still sometimes yearns for the old days, but only now and then; has a strong mysoginist streak, but is extremely tolerant of foreign cultures; somewhere deep down, a bit of a romantic, but that's buried under some heavy scar tissue". Mercenaries tend to be neutral or chaotic (as their loyalties can be bought). The phrase 'loyal King's man' implies a lawful alignment, due to respect for authority and loyalty. With the yearning for the old days, he evidently isn't *too* affixed to the King, so he'd be Neutral on the L-C axis. The rest of it bears no real connection to alignment and could be applied to a character of ANY alignment. The truth, as they say, is in the details. Alignment is only a stereotype if you choose to play it that way. |
| Soichiro Arima04-01-05, 06:45 PM | I have been, thinking about the alignment system, and about whether or not it actually works. More precisely, I have been thinking about what it does, what it is supposed to to, and what it actually does. The alignment system makes no sense as a way of approximating anything aproaching morality or personality. A "good/evil/law/chaos" system has no room for characters with complex motivations, divided loyalties, or anything along those lines. You simply can't fit "ex-mercenary turned loyal king's man, still sometimes yearns for the old days, but only now and then; has a strong mysoginist streak, but is extremely tolerant of foreign cultures; somewhere deep down, a bit of a romantic, but that's buried under some heavy scar tissue" into a two-axis system. The alignment system, however, does work reasonably well as a way of representing traditional fantasy archetypes. Heroes (either stalwart and true LG or roguish CG), villains (LE tyrants, and CE marauders) and extras (LN guardsmen, CN vagabonds). Thought about in this way, it works fine. You can reasonably easily describe people as "hero" and "villain". By extension of this, I'm coming to the conclusion that it isn't actually possible to run a campaign with "Evil" PCs. "Evil" really just means "opposed to the PCs" - that's what a villain is when you get right down to it, somebody on the opposite side to your protagonist. If your PCs are evil, and if they are going to be remotely interesting to actually play, then they are going to have to be complicated enough to be outside the alignment system proper. If your characters really *were* pure fantasy evil, then they wouldn't do anything much apart from rushing groups of heavily armed adventurers and burning down villages for no good reason, which will probably get old fast. Thoughts? I agree with you. Its better just to remove alignment than to come up with a better system that doesnt offend people though. |
| Dan Hemmens04-01-05, 07:46 PM | The mistake you're making, IMHO, is assuming that alignment is the end-all and be-all of a personality. Not quite, my point is more that alignment is not *useful* when applied to a character with a detailed personality. You can look at my mercenary example, and figure out that, all things considered, he's probably neutral on the law-chaos axis, but putting it in terms of alignment doesn't help you get a grip on the character. On the other hand, I think that alignment *can* be useful if you accept it for what it is, a set of generic fantasy tropes that can be used to paint a gameworld in very broad strokes. Chaotic evil runs around butchering things, Lawful evil tries to take over the world, Lawful good smites the unholy, Chaotic good robs from the rich and gives to the poor. To put it another way, in D&D terms, I count as Neutral Evil, because I wear a black hat. If you look at it this way, suddenly all of the "why are undead evil if they're mindless" questions go away. |
| Seeker9504-01-05, 08:29 PM | You're starting at the wrong end. Alignment doesn't define your actions. Actions define your alignment. Just play the game. Let the DM compare your actions to the alignment descriptions and assign accordingly. |
| 11d704-01-05, 08:53 PM | http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v455/alyxzandrea/ThomasSkillsofanArtisit.bmp Me jumping into the air, I'm going to land on Alignment with my feet knocking it to the ground and chop it with my sword! PS: Work in progress, I was making it right now and disided to make a cheap finish so I could post it. I'm going to draw in the guy hes jumping on now. |
| Thorak04-01-05, 10:47 PM | You're starting at the wrong end. Alignment doesn't define your actions. Actions define your alignment. Just play the game. Let the DM compare your actions to the alignment descriptions and assign accordingly. Repeated. Alignment is a description of how your character tends to act. It is not a straightjacket that forces him to act a certain way at all times. Complex motivations are fine. His alignment is what he tends to do most. Or what he doesn't feel guilty about. Your mercenary is likely Neutral, or possibly Neutral Good. It's hard to tell with as little information as you've given. And sure, more complicated people with desires pulling them in two directions will tend to balance more towards the middle and end up Neutral. That doesn't mean the system is flawed, it means you are incorrectly seeing Neutral as "undecided" or something, when it's its own thing. We need to scrap this "two axes" viewpoint and go with the "two triangles" one. A balance between, or indifference to, good and evil (or law and chaos) is a whole lot different than being stuck between the two being pulled in both directions. Neutral is it's own alignment, it's not "too evil to be good, to good to be evil". |
| roguebfl04-01-05, 11:34 PM | The phrase 'loyal King's man' implies a lawful alignment, due to respect for authority and loyalty. With the yearning for the old days, he evidently isn't *too* affixed to the King, so he'd be Neutral on the L-C axis. The rest of it bears no real connection to alignment and could be applied to a character of ANY alignment. Heres another way a Chaotic Character Can be a "loyal King's man", but not people cuse he the "King" But becuse he is Loyal to the person, who happens to be king. Chaotics people care about indiviadual can if the believe the indivuail is worthy that can be willing to die for ther indvidual. |
| ajs04-01-05, 11:37 PM | The alignment system makes no sense as a way of approximating anything aproaching morality or personality. A "good/evil/law/chaos" system has no room for characters with complex motivations, divided loyalties, or anything along those lines. Absolutely! The problem you seem to have is that you WANT to do so... I think you've missed something in D&D's alignment system. Let's follow your example: You simply can't fit "ex-mercenary There are ex-mercenaries (and active mercs) ALL OVER the spectrum from Lawful Good to Chaotic Evil and everywhere in-between. Nothing about being a mercenary says anything about your alignment. Now your alignment might guide your choices in what jobs to take or not take, but that's another thing entirely. turned loyal king's man Loyalty is generally a lawful trait, but more in the sense that lawful characters are going to value their own loyalty more than others than in a causal sense. There are some very loyal chaotics out there, but they choose their loyalties rarely, carefully and for their own reasons. Loyalty says nothing about alignment nor the other way around when it comes to good vs. evil however, and I can point you to some classic examples of evil, but very loyal henchmen, followers and allies from literature if you like. still sometimes yearns for the old day, but only now and then; Good background material. Has nothing to do with alignment. has a strong mysoginist streak That's a personality trait, potentially a cultural bias, and in some cases might be indicative of a chaotic or even evil slant, but again it's not causal, just something that you might expect more often in the latter cases. There are dozens of examples of the Lawful Good mysoginist in literature and real-life (don't confuse "good" with "pleasant" or "likeable"). but is extremely tolerant of foreign cultures; This is, again, good background and gives you a sense of his cultural mores, but that's not alignment. Could indicate that he's just particularly smart (or crafty) or that he's acting on a lawful nature... I'd allow it in characters of any alignment. somewhere deep down, a bit of a romantic, but that's buried under some heavy scar tissue Great background, good character building there. Nothing whatsoever to do with alignment. So, the character you gave seems to be joe everyman in terms of alignment, though as a CHARACTER CONCEPT, it's fairly well put together, and I'd be happy to invite such a character into my game under any alignment. This is the key point: alignment is NOT your character. Your character has an alignment. These are the core values of good vs. evil and order vs. chaos that he or she aspires to. It doesn't tell you how old they are or how much they love their cat. It just gives you a sense of where they stand in terms of the two most obvious opposing forces of the D&D cosmology. Don't try to make your players label their characters. Try to get them to DESCRIBE them the way you just did. Alignment is not a Meirs/Briggs test, it's choosing sides. Most people don't choose consciously, but PCs do. Choose wisely, and then get about the real meat of character creation. |
| Darkblade4000104-02-05, 12:41 AM | You've got to remeber that actions and (just as importantly) the motives behind those actions is what determines alignment. As people have said before, it is just a gereral guideline for you're character's behaivior, and hardly matters unless you're a paladin or another restrictive class. Also, the whole alignment system is for the most part simpley a game mechanic. It functions for example, as the targets for detect evil, or magic circle against chaos. Hope that clears things up. |
| Particle_Man04-02-05, 02:05 AM | As far as actions go, it seems like people that help all in need tend to good, people that help out their friends/kin only tend to be neutral, and people that only help out themselves tend to be evil. In addition to this progressive restriction of those in the "must help" group, there is also the fact that actions that excessively hurt those outside the "must help" group (torturing beggars for fun rather than simply ignoring their pleas for aid) will make one evil rather than merely neutral or good. With that in place, the reason evil PC's are more difficult to DM than good or neutral PC's is that you need to put in a stronger reason for them to adventure together. Enlightened self-interest or a mutual BIG threat might work for a while, but if they are evil, they will always be ready to betray each other (either in the CE or NE "I kill you" sense or in the LE "I accuse you of being a commie mutant traitor -- you are under arrest!" sense) and they will likely know that their fellow-party members are the same way, and they all know that they all know... On the other hand, you could have a group that is loyal to each other, but excessively brutal to everyone else (serial killer teams, etc.) and that would count as evil too. But this gets a bit distasteful for me. A good/neutral party can more easily get along (could be old friends from the same town, could all be allied in their quest to stop The Shadow, etc.), and will not do actions I personally find distasteful to DM. Thus I simply ban evil PC's from my campaigns, and if any PC becomes evil, he simultaneously becomes an NPC. The reason most players want to have an evil PC is to play the Assassin class. :) |
| totoro04-02-05, 03:39 AM | Although I agree that alignment is completely workable as a system, I also agree that there are problems with it in some cases (such as hatred of a particular race). It becomes problematic to say a person who acts with good intent toward all humans, but slaughters non-humans at every opportunity (and loves it) is evil. He is clearly evil with respect to the non-humans and clearly good with respect to the humans. One could argue that this is psychologically implausible (you can't have that kind of hate and still be good), but I'm not so sure. I always label this type of character evil, but I don't particularly like doing so (and I realize some people believe you can just label him neutral because he sometimes does good and sometimes does evil, but I find choosing an alignment that he ACTUALLY acts out to be more appealing than choosing an alignment that he averages into). Another problem is the "degree" of evil. Evil is easy for me to spot as a DM and my players know exactly what evil is (it's never been as confusing as it seems to get on these boards, but it helps that I take every opportunity to argue about alignment here so that my views are consistent.) Nearly evil is a bit more difficult. I think there are several kinds of nearly evil acts, but they are really quite different. You can knowingly kill someone without any intent to kill them (e.g., plant a bomb in a building and explode it because you want the building to be gone, but don't really intend to hurt anyone inside). You could also act with reckless disregard for others and kill someone accidentally due to your recklessness. You could also kill someone who really offends you (such as a guy who is sleeping with your wife). You have a reason to be angry, but the killing still isn't right in most jurisdictions (in some, killing a guy you catch with your wife isn't murder). Killing with a bad excuse might be murder, it might be voluntary manslaughter (a less serious crime). These are just three examples and I don't have a difficult time with knowingly killing without intent being completely evil and voluntary manslaughter suggestive of (evil) tendencies. However, recklessness doesn't really mean you have intent. You can't be evil unless you intend to be, but at some point you also have to rise to some reasonable degree of care. Get in a car when you are completely wasted and try to drive home with only the intent of getting home is sooo dangerous. You have no evil intent, but still... The voluntary manslaughter problem shows up with some regularity. A player gets mad and chops up a villager. It doesn't happen in my games, but it happens all the time in other games and I just think "(evil)". Pretty easy diagnosis for me. Unintentional stuff is another matter entirely and since you have less "control" over what your activities do in a game, since you are really there in the game world, throwing that fireball in a tavern might seem like a good idea to a player, but it would not seem so good if you were really there. I got hit with something like this long ago in a WEG Star Wars game (which includes the concept of good, but not law/chaos). I detected life in a cabin using force powers while we were on board a cruiser with a breached hull (we were in space suits). I carved through a hatch to get to the life. That bled the oxygen out of the cabin and the occupants died. I got a dark side point for using a force power for evil. I couldn't argue with the recklessness of my actions, but I had no intention of killing the occupants and, if I had actually been there, would not have acted as I did. Recklessness pops up all the time in D&D, whether intentional or not. And I don't think the alignment system models this type of action very well. And let's not even start with the law-chaos paradoxes you could come up with using RAW. |
| Vahenir04-02-05, 04:11 AM | What everyone here has already said is generally true - alignment is your alignment because that's how you generally act, not because your alignment forces you to act that way. That being said - it IS more of a game mechanic than anything actually useful. If you, for example, removed the struggle of Law and Chaos from your games (and all associated spells and magic items), then removed all spells, abilities - whatever that specifically require "goodness" and "Evil' - you can play in a great game without specified alignments. But it's a lot of work. I've done it, and enjoyed it. But I also enjoy just playing a game of D&D. The only problem that's INHERENT with alignment is that some people will try to push on you that a character of a certain alignment MUST think and act a certain way. I blame WotC for this, because of their all-too-restrictive definitions of alignments in the Player's Handbook. |
| CzarGarrett04-02-05, 11:40 AM | Their strict alignment descriptions have to be supplemented with common sense from players and DMs. With the exclusion of Paladins and Exalted characters, being Good doesn't not mean you have to be good all the time. Hell, I'd probably consider a character with 5 good acts, 3 evil, 1 neutral to be a good character. The descriptions given by WotC are the Paragon Ideals of each alignment. Few people are ever always LG or CE. |
| roguebfl04-02-05, 11:57 AM | Few people are ever always LG or CE. the also the point ther are few humans who are LG or CE in the first plase, must humans as Neutral, have no strong preance to any of the extream alignments |
| siegezug04-02-05, 02:12 PM | I hate alignment restrictions on some classes. I want to play a Monk, but I don't want to play boring Confucious spouting Mr. Spock emotionless Lawful/Good Monk. I mean, seriously, you have a Wizard who goes to some school or high master and learns the ways of the Force there and you have the Sorcerer who learned just from being awesome! You have the Barbarian who learned to KLAR out in the wilderness and on his own and then you have the Fighter who learned to KLAR somewhere in civilized society! So WHY can't there be some sort of I-fight-with-my-spirit style guy who brought his skills up on his own through intense personal training/self discipline/experience/emotion to counter balance the stuffy Monk who went to a Monestary forever and learned KI-YAH there? It's just so Grrrrrrrr... |
| FreeTheSlaves04-02-05, 03:14 PM | I've always played using alignments and never have I had any of these problems. Wait... no... nup, no problems. |
| roguebfl04-02-05, 04:03 PM | I hate alignment restrictions on some classes. I want to play a Monk, but I don't want to play boring Confucious spouting Mr. Spock emotionless Lawful/Good Monk. I mean, seriously, you have a Wizard who goes to some school or high master and learns the ways of the Force there and you have the Sorcerer who learned just from being awesome! You have the Barbarian who learned to KLAR out in the wilderness and on his own and then you have the Fighter who learned to KLAR somewhere in civilized society! So WHY can't there be some sort of I-fight-with-my-spirit style guy who brought his skills up on his own through intense personal training/self discipline/experience/emotion to counter balance the stuffy Monk who went to a Monestary forever and learned KI-YAH there? It's just so Grrrrrrrr... The leart more than Ki-yar, any ony can learn Ki yah, just pick up Improved unarmed combat feat. |
| Seeker9504-02-05, 04:19 PM | I want to play a Monk, but I don't want to play boring Confucious spouting Mr. Spock emotionless Lawful/Good Monk.Then don't. Play a *lawful* monk. Lawful. Orderly. Determined. He need not be good. He need not be emotionless. From the SRD: LAWFUL "Law" implies honor, trustworthiness, obedience to authority, and reliability. On the downside, lawfulness can include close-mindedness, reactionary adherence to tradition, judgmentalness, and a lack of adaptability. Those who consciously promote lawfulness say that only lawful behavior creates a society in which people can depend on each other and make the right decisions in full confidence that others will act as they should. |
| FreeTheSlaves04-02-05, 04:46 PM | (Shush Seeker, noone other than us is supposed to know of characters beyond the stereotypes; you know the penalty you must now surely face) |
| Majorafire7704-02-05, 08:07 PM | The alignment system makes no sense as a way of approximating anything aproaching morality or personality. A "good/evil/law/chaos" system has no room for characters with complex motivations, divided loyalties, or anything along those lines. You simply can't fit "ex-mercenary turned loyal king's man, still sometimes yearns for the old days, but only now and then; has a strong mysoginist streak, but is extremely tolerant of foreign cultures; somewhere deep down, a bit of a romantic, but that's buried under some heavy scar tissue" into a two-axis system. In short, good and evil describe a character's ideals, and law and chaos describe the means she uses to work toward her goals. The law of the land in any given place is most likely designed to promote social order, so in general terms, lawful characters are more likely to respect it than chaotic characters are. However, the content of the law matters much more than its mere existence. BTW, just because you're lawful doesn't mean that you can't do some type of chaotic action. Consider the overly-hyped video game Fable. You can be a good character and do a bad action, but your appearance (which signifies whether or not you are good or evil in the game) doesn't immediately switch over to the dark side. Keep on doing evil actions however, and yes, you will change. |
| Thorak04-02-05, 09:50 PM | With that in place, the reason evil PC's are more difficult to DM than good or neutral PC's is that you need to put in a stronger reason for them to adventure together. Enlightened self-interest or a mutual BIG threat might work for a while, but if they are evil, they will always be ready to betray each other (either in the CE or NE "I kill you" sense or in the LE "I accuse you of being a commie mutant traitor -- you are under arrest!" sense) and they will likely know that their fellow-party members are the same way, and they all know that they all know... Evil PCs are only as difficult to DM as the players behind them are. It's just as easy to get Evil PCs to work together as it is Good ones. Easier, in some cases. They can even, to a large extent, trust each other. Reasons; [list] It's a nasty world, and it's nice to have someone at your back. They've got yours, and you've got theirs, and screw everyone else. You can make more money from your share of what you get in the group than you could evere make alone. You've put far too much effort into making friends with these people to throw all that down the tubes and start over for some paltry cash. Besides, just because you like playing with baby's entrails doesn't mean you'd betray a friend. You're not a monster, after all. Evil to the point of being incapable of socializing with others isn't evil. That's insanity. Money. Someone's paying you good hard cash for this, and you're not goin' back on your word. They paid the fee, you do the job. That's how this works. Companionship. Evil people get just as lonely as other people. And they're just as capable of having friends. They're the ones who will apologize (maybe) as they abandon you to go home with that hot chick they picked up, rather than getting her number so they can drive you home and call her later. Sure, they're not completely reliable, but they're fun, and they understand you and support you. Most of the time, anyway. "You can screw with this town, it's a dirthole anyway. You can screw with it's people, they mean nothing to me. You can even screw with me, because I know I deserve it. But nobody screws with my *KTHUNK* friends *squishy slicing sounds* got it?" For other examples, see any comic book villain's organization, either a grouping of the villains or one villain's individual network, or any movie where it turns out there are two serial killers, not just one, etc, etc, etc. Evil isn't lonely, it just needs to make sure it's friends are just as twisted as it is. |
| Plastik04-03-05, 03:44 AM | I'm gonna go out on a limb here on a concept I've had and defended for quite some time: The Law/Chaos - Good/Evil system is absolutely and inexhausably infallable, a marvellous gem among the muddy waret that is D&D. It's the only thing that is instantly and absolutely clear to the DM. It defines basic action, and it runs on real logic. But the problem with it (as people here have noticed and noted ad infinitum) is twofold: Interpretation and Constancy. I'll address constancy first. The system is only perfect if you consider the fact that alignments change. I DMmed a gme with a Paladin who became bored. Utterly and tirelessly bored. Listless. So tired of the adventure for good and purity that one day he was in a town and *Ka-thunk* sunk his sword into a peasant's torso. And then another. And another. A paladin, the virtuous one, slaughtered an entire city. Just *BAM* and the streets were filed with corpses. So he went CE for the change and eventually got to LE by basing a massive assault upon the local towns from his newfound keep. How was he able to do this? BECAUSE ALIGNMENT IS INCONSTANT. There are many rulers against which the universe can judge a player. There is the Lifetime, which is absolute, and a finality. If you kill a trillion halflings at age 18 and go on to help the homeless for your next 40 years, the univere rules your life to be Chaotic Neutral. Sure, the first 18 years were CE, and the last 40 were LE, but that's not the point. Overall, you were pretty damn neutral. That's why this system is an utter waste of everyone's time. Only Humans are ever judged on lifetime good or evil, but only by races who live to three times their lifespan. Then you can say a year. If, over the period of one year, you methodically purged the deepest realms of the Underverse of evil, and then you came back to your realm and stabbed your (LG) mother and then cleaved into your (LG) father, over the year, you were pretty much LG. Yeah, you killed your 'rents, but I don't throw down a bonus for paternity. Murder is murder. Then you get shorter. 1-week. That last guy over 1 week scale would be CE. Then days. Soon, you hit hours. So the point is, you have to define a time. I usually see in-game alignment (listed on the player sheet) as a 4-day affair, since that's how long I figure it would take all parties involved to get informed of a group's deeds. Now on to the second. Which was really the first. Constancy. How constant are the boundaries? To me, its obvious. I mean, sure, it's a value jugement, but it's always a value judgement. And I pretty much always see it the same way. What I'll do is, over my 4 days, I take notes at 6-hour intervals (or less for mre than 4 players) of their actions, then I judge their final alignment. I guess you could make a point system, but even that would be overtly judgemental and take (at least) a 96 page book of standard D&D size. Needless to say, I plan to start work on the aformentioned publication within days. ALSO: If you disallow a PC from becoming evil, and you make his char into a NPC for doing so, you're really not even worth playing under. I mean, its you right to DM your way, and I'll die to defend that, but it's just ignorant. It's like saying "No Halflings, because no midget would ever want to campaign with a Paladin" or something illogical like that. |
| Particle_Man04-03-05, 05:26 AM | ALSO: If you disallow a PC from becoming evil, and you make his char into a NPC for doing so, you're really not even worth playing under. I mean, its you right to DM your way, and I'll die to defend that, but it's just ignorant. It's like saying "No Halflings, because no midget would ever want to campaign with a Paladin" or something illogical like that. My players have had no complaints on my alignment ruling. And oddly enough, I know of a DM that bans elves from her campaigns, because in her opinion they are an insult to Tolkein's version. Different strokes for different folks. |
| Vharuck04-03-05, 05:27 AM | Actions don't determine alignment. The character does. And by character, I mean it in the literary term: the synopsis and description of how a certain character acts in certain situations. A mass murderer who goes on a murder spree for a week and is kept in chains for the rest of his life is evil. He may not have killed people for 50 years, but his mindset and character was that of an evil person. |
| Particle_Man04-03-05, 05:50 AM | I think that we disagree over what counts as evil. I will give my opinions of various things you list, with the understanding that they are only my opinions, in the hope that you will understand in turn where I am coming from with my alignment ruling in my campaign. [list] It's a nasty world, and it's nice to have someone at your back. They've got yours, and you've got theirs, and screw everyone else. This for me is neutral, not evil. Evil would be "screw everyone else but me", not "screw everyone else but me and my friends" You can make more money from your share of what you get in the group than you could evere make alone. This is contingent. What if someone has a chance at a "big score"? Evil characters would then weigh the profits + odds of getting away with betrayal. Think of the movie "Payback". You've put far too much effort into making friends with these people to throw all that down the tubes and start over for some paltry cash. Besides, just because you like playing with baby's entrails doesn't mean you'd betray a friend. You're not a monster, after all. The "baby's entrails" comment would fit my second criterion of evil, but falls under the "distasteful to me" clause of banning evil in my campaigns. And the first part is contingent. What if the cash is not paltry, but SUPER HUGE? One could always BUY new friends with enough cash (or so the evil thoughts go...). Evil to the point of being incapable of socializing with others isn't evil. That's insanity. Where does "able to pretend to socialize with others, unless and until one will profit more from betraying those others" fall under? I would consider that the neutral evil assassin, because of the betrayal part. Again, characters can be social for a while, but the contingency of "I will betray you if it profits me to do so" is still there, and make group cohesiveness more difficult than a bunch of good people for whom betrayal would be much less likely. Money. Someone's paying you good hard cash for this, and you're not goin' back on your word. They paid the fee, you do the job. That's how this works. Definitly Lawful, but Evil characters would quickly look for loopholes (think of lawful evil lawyers). "The Black Company" by Glen Cook has great examples of "Rationalizations" of taking money and then betraying their bosses. Or, they get paid, do the job (get the "gizmo", for instance), and then (once the contracted obligation is over) attack the people that hired them and get back the "gizmo" they were hired to retrieve, in order to sell to another bidder. Also, if a team is hired to do the job, the job is done, and only one member of the team is alive, that is less ways to split the earnings of the job, right? Companionship. Evil people get just as lonely as other people. And they're just as capable of having friends. They're the ones who will apologize (maybe) as they abandon you to go home with that hot chick they picked up, rather than getting her number so they can drive you home and call her later. Sure, they're not completely reliable, but they're fun, and they understand you and support you. Most of the time, anyway. I can't help thinking of the "I'm Ronery" song in "TEAM America". :) But anyhow, I would again classify this as more chatoic than evil ("unreliable", "fun", etc.). "You can screw with this town, it's a dirthole anyway. You can screw with it's people, they mean nothing to me. You can even screw with me, because I know I deserve it. But nobody screws with my *KTHUNK* friends *squishy slicing sounds* got it?" This sounds like neutral to me, not evil. The person that lets a beggar starve/suffer, but not a friend. As opposed to the person that lets a so-called "friend" starve (my first criterion of evil - leads to mutual distrust), or who tortures a beggar (my second criterion - is distasteful to me). For other examples, see any comic book villain's organization, either a grouping of the villains or one villain's individual network, or any movie where it turns out there are two serial killers, not just one, etc, etc, etc. Evil isn't lonely, it just needs to make sure it's friends are just as twisted as it is. Well comic book villains either have "mooks" who don't betray their leaders because of sheer fear of the leaders' power, or else brain-washing, or else the "villains" (at least at the "mook" level) are closer to neutral than evil, or there ARE betrayals. That happens a heck of a lot with villain organizations, actually. Until recently, the Flash's rogues gallery was notorious for rogues screwing with each other. And Batman's major villains regularly kill their own "mooks" (the Joker, the Penguin, etc.). Also, think of the movie "The Incredibles". Syndrome gets betrayed by his assistant, after he shows that he at least looked willing to seriously risk her life. And with two serial killers outside of the movies, they often turn on each other when they are caught, in order to try to lessen their sentences. Inside a movie like "Natural Born Killers" I would say that the characters are simply not realistically portrayed. But even if they are, and make pc characters, we get back to the "aethetically distasteful" part of my objections (SERIAL killers, right?). So we have a difference of opinion. I would allow for PCs some of the traits that you list as examples of evil, but would not consider those traits evil. |
| Seeker9504-03-05, 03:34 PM | ALSO: If you disallow a PC from becoming evil, and you make his char into a NPC for doing so, you're really not even worth playing under.Saying I don't allow evil PCs is no different than being coach of a sports team where you bench the player who keeps handing the other team the ball. The DM is allowed to require that the team of players have all the players on the same team. This is not a requirement, but it is certainly understandable and acceptable. And such DMs are certainly worth playing under. |
| roguebfl04-03-05, 03:53 PM | Saying I don't allow evil PCs is no different than being coach of a sports team where you bench the player who keeps handing the other team the ball. The DM is allowed to require that the team of players have all the players on the same team. This is not a requirement, but it is certainly understandable and acceptable. And such DMs are certainly worth playing under. I totally agree. I get together to play a social co-op game with my friends. if I want to frag them I would fire up my LAN (which i have for this purpose) and Frag them in Quake Arena. |
| Dan Hemmens04-03-05, 08:45 PM | This is the key point: alignment is NOT your character. Your character has an alignment. These are the core values of good vs. evil and order vs. chaos that he or she aspires to. It doesn't tell you how old they are or how much they love their cat. It just gives you a sense of where they stand in terms of the two most obvious opposing forces of the D&D cosmology. But this only goes so far. If I am directly and personally serving Good King Wenceslas, Lord of Goodness, fighting in his army of Good against the forces of Evil, but I kill people for fun in my spare time, then I'm not really Good. Besides, even if you define Good and Evil as sides, you still get the same effect. Those cosmological forces are essentially style choices. Evil has huge armies of black armoured warriors and shambling zombies, Good has plucky halflings and willowy elves. Evil, as the girls at Boils and Blinding Torment would have it, wears leather, and wears it well. If you define alignment as "picking a side", you still need to define those sides. A Lawful Good character may just be one on the side of Lawfulness and Goodness, but you need to work out what that entails. You still ultimately have to say either (a) Good represents that which is morally right or (b) Good represents the guys in shiny armour. If you try to go with (a) you get all manner of problems ("So why is it always morally wrong to reanimate the dead"). If you go with (b) you don't. And that's kind of my point. |
| Plastik04-03-05, 10:24 PM | My players have had no complaints on my alignment ruling. And oddly enough, I know of a DM that bans elves from her campaigns, because in her opinion they are an insult to Tolkein's version. Different strokes for different folks. That's fine if it works for you, but I personally would never play under you or your friend as DMs un;ess there were no other options. It's an insult to the game and to balance to say there can be no Evil. Seeker: You have this twisted idea that somehow, in some sense, Evil is associated with killing, or hating, or even mildly dislking your Good teammates. Plenty of evil characters love good characters, especially becasue the good tend to be so... trusting. As an LE Dwarf in another DM's campaign, I have gotten into a groupwhere we all have different ideals, but we accept that and move on (to a point. At some times we fight. But usually it's all good). I can be evil becase I am on a quest to murder every blond-haired blue-eyed human I see. I kill them without mercy or question. I am most definitely evil, but if I pose some sort of benefit to the group, they'd keep me, and provided that they're not of the proper description, they stay alive. Evil hates Good about as much as Chaos hates Law. If you stick everybody into the same set of alignments you're no longer DMming, you're playing House in a dungeon where dragons occasionaly try to take your good china. Without alignment and internal conflict, the game is no longer fun. |
| Thorak04-04-05, 12:48 AM | This for me is neutral, not evil. Evil would be "screw everyone else but me", not "screw everyone else but me and my friends" Why? I (and for these examples, this is a theoretical 'I', not my actual self) like torturing babies with knives and raping any girl I can get away with. That doesn't mean I won't help a friend out, especially if he supports my baby-torturing and raping. This is contingent. What if someone has a chance at a "big score"? Evil characters would then weigh the profits + odds of getting away with betrayal. Think of the movie "Payback". Yes. But what you're talking is incredibly short-sighted. Sure, some Evil characters might be short-sighted, but it's perfectly possible for one to say "Yeah, I could make a million by screwing my friends, or I could screw you, make a shot for the million with them anyway, and while we'll split it 6 ways, we can then hit another few jobs to make up for it. And it's a lot safer in the long run to boot." The "baby's entrails" comment would fit my second criterion of evil, but falls under the "distasteful to me" clause of banning evil in my campaigns. And the first part is contingent. What if the cash is not paltry, but SUPER HUGE? One could always BUY new friends with enough cash (or so the evil thoughts go...). Evil people don't necessarily think you can buy friends. Smart ones, in fact, know they can't. That's why organizations like the Mafia worked with principles of loyalty and honour, underpinning their organization. Because money doesn't hold a group together. Deeper principles do. While with a big organization, you'll inevitable have someone bail, it's perfectly plausible to have it work on a party-size scale. Where does "able to pretend to socialize with others, unless and until one will profit more from betraying those others" fall under? I would consider that the neutral evil assassin, because of the betrayal part. Again, characters can be social for a while, but the contingency of "I will betray you if it profits me to do so" is still there, and make group cohesiveness more difficult than a bunch of good people for whom betrayal would be much less likely. The contingency you're bringing up doesn't exist for every Evil character. That's like saying that every Good character has to jump in front of any arrow fired at anyone ever. It's a ridiculously limited view. Definitly Lawful, but Evil characters would quickly look for loopholes (think of lawful evil lawyers). "The Black Company" by Glen Cook has great examples of "Rationalizations" of taking money and then betraying their bosses. Or, they get paid, do the job (get the "gizmo", for instance), and then (once the contracted obligation is over) attack the people that hired them and get back the "gizmo" they were hired to retrieve, in order to sell to another bidder. Also, if a team is hired to do the job, the job is done, and only one member of the team is alive, that is less ways to split the earnings of the job, right? But less people to make going after the next, bigger, job possible. There's always another job, and unless you get some reliable backup, you can't go for the big scores. This sounds like neutral to me, not evil. The person that lets a beggar starve/suffer, but not a friend. As opposed to the person that lets a so-called "friend" starve (my first criterion of evil - leads to mutual distrust), or who tortures a beggar (my second criterion - is distasteful to me). Again, your interpretation of Evil is needlessly narrow. Evil means you have no compunctions about using hurting and killing to get what you want. That doesn't mean you're indiscriminate about hurting and killing, or that you'll do them to anyone at the drop of a hat. That's insanity. You're relegating evil to the position of being criminally insane. Which simply isn't true. Well comic book villains either have "mooks" who don't betray their leaders because of sheer fear of the leaders' power, or else brain-washing, or else the "villains" (at least at the "mook" level) are closer to neutral than evil, or there ARE betrayals. That happens a heck of a lot with villain organizations, actually. Until recently, the Flash's rogues gallery was notorious for rogues screwing with each other. And Batman's major villains regularly kill their own "mooks" (the Joker, the Penguin, etc.). Also, think of the movie "The Incredibles". Syndrome gets betrayed by his assistant, after he shows that he at least looked willing to seriously risk her life. And with two serial killers outside of the movies, they often turn on each other when they are caught, in order to try to lessen their sentences. Inside a movie like "Natural Born Killers" I would say that the characters are simply not realistically portrayed. But even if they are, and make pc characters, we get back to the "aethetically distasteful" part of my objections (SERIAL killers, right?). Again, yes, you can find examples of certain characteristics. That doesn't make them universally true of Evil. To use a comic book villain, look at Magneto. He has compunctions. He won't hurt mutants without a reason, like them opposing him. But he has very little concern for the welfare of regular humans. He's evil. But he's not psychotic. Evil /= insane. |
| Particle_Man04-04-05, 11:44 AM | Well, I think the PHB backs me up. " "Evil" implies hurting, oppressing, and killing others." Check. "People who are neutral have compunctions against killing the innocent but lack the commitment to make sacrifices to protect or help others. Neutral people are committed ot others by personal relationships. A neutral person may sacrifice himself to protect his family or even his homeland, but he would not sdo so for starngers who are not related to him." This is all under the Good Vs. Evil section of the alignment part of the phb, and is what I base my criterion on. For for an earlier post, the LE "serial killer" dwarf (all blond blue-eyed humans must die!) would be a problem for good people because innocent humans are getting hurt. As soon as the good party members find out what the dwarf was doing, the dwarf would be stopped/imprisoned/possibly killed by the good party members. Otherwise, what is good about them if they don't try to stop the wanton killing of innocents? Their "I am good" T-shirts? :D And speaking "in real life" for a moment, if you have a friend (even a close friend) that regularly targets "blonde haired, blue eyed humans" for *murder*, I really hope you call the police on that guy. Same with anyone you know that is a rapist (even just one rape) or torturer of babies (even just one baby-torture session). Just saying. :eek: :eek: :eek: The "serial killing", "baby torturing" and "raping" falls under the 2nd way of being evil - it implies one possibly could get along with others (a team of serial killers, baby-torturers and rapists, perhaps), but is distasteful to me and for that reason is not allowed in my campaigns. And I can just keep upping the ante with the "money" bribe until you agree that an evil character would betray his friends. Imagine that the money is enough to retire forever. Imagine that it is enough to retire and buy your own island/country/heck, planet or demi-plane. Now the temptation surely must be too great. There would be no need for a "next score" or "next job" so there would be no need for these friends; "I think the usefulness of our partnership has come to an end...". Or one might switch to the side one is betraying one's friends TO, if that new side offers more long-term advantages. The guy in Payback betrayed the protagonist in order to join the Mafia, I believe (been a while since I saw that movie). Speaking of which, the modern mafia is having troubles precisely because people DO sell them out. Thus the mafia has to resort to fear tactics like "I kill you and your whole family!" rather than "family loyalty" tactics. Because they hire people that are "evil" rather than "neutral". Also, evil characters don't have to "torture beggars" all the time in my campaign to be evil. If one EVER tortures a known innocent, he has just taken the trip into evil land, do not pass go, you are an NPC. Again, think of your reaction to a friend that tells you he once raped someone, or once tortured a known innocent. Or, at least, please understand what mine would be. Magneto might not be a good example, as he was regularly trying to kill the X-Men. On the other hand, he did have the whole "Brotherhood of Evil Mutants" deal going for a while. This leads to the idea of all humans being perceived as the enemy by the "oppressed race" of mutants. The idea is that one might go TOO far, even if one's race has been oppressed. Thus one would have to be stopped (by the "Good" X-men -- although I am not sure if the early Magneto did much EXCEPT try to kill the X-Men). A nice "What if Magneto led the mutants" comics has him set up the death of a mutant baby in order to bring warring factions of mutants together (distasteful). Another "What if" sort of story has Toad betray Magneto to the Inquisition. "Et tu, Toad?" But clearly, Magneto was WAY more powerful than any or all of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants he led, so the idea of betrayal in the regular marvel universe would not likely come up, for different reasons than simple loyalty. But what is interesting about Magneto is that he was sometimes straying towards neutral, depending precisely upon how he treated normal humans and those mutants that opposed his cause (when he got granted his own "mutant" island for a while, for instance). Of course, he sometimes also strayed towards insanity...That's where the alignment graph would come in, depending on who was writing Magneto that day. But Marvel comics has no handy alignment graph, nor "Detect Evil" spells, nor, alas, consistant writers. I agree evil does not equal insanity. But if someone tortures babies (even once), they are both evil and distasteful, and hence not in my campaign. If someone targets an innocent group of people for death, they are evil, and good people (who protect innocents) would have to oppose them. People who did not even want to oppose them are called Neutral by the phb definition. That hopefully explains why evil and good characters would not get along for long. If someone is evil, and neither does distasteful actions (such as harming innocents detectable as such) nor is even capable of betraying one of their friends, then I don't see where they are evil anymore. Again, what would make them evil? Their "I am evil" T-shirts? :D The closest I could see to a party of evil characters working together is where they have a group of LE folk that hate elves (for instance) and so are trying to wipe them out, but don't hate each other, and work for the common cause of "racial purification". Lets say they aren't into the whole "baby-torture + rape" deal. They just want to kill the elves. The question then becomes "Why?" and "What happens if you run across a group of clearly innocent elves, like elven children?". Evil characters would, I assume simply kill the elven children, but we get into the distasteful zone again. So let's look at the first question. If the answer to "Why?" is something along the lines of "elves have killed our people for too long, elves are evil" then this would be a "lawful neutral or neutral" reason, rather than an "evil" one, and one could roleplay what happens as the party discovers that elves are not the "evil" oppressors they are thought to be (assume standard CG elves, not a world where all elves really ARE evil). It might even lead to atonement, a la "The Shadow". If the answer to "Why?" is "It's fun! Who cares if elves are evil or not?" then yes, we have our evil party, but no, I don't run to run a game for serial killer characters. Back into the distasteful zone. Eww. Eww. Eww. :( :( :( Thus one can run a game with evil characters that get along, but such characters would do things that I find distasteful and don't want to dm. If you want to DM the party of baby-killers, or rapists, or serial killers, then that is your choice. On the other hand, if one's character never, ever, intentionally harms those he knows to be innocent, and never, ever, would betray his friends, then I would call this character neutral not evil. If you call such a character evil, then we simply are using different definitions for the same word, and for all I know might allow or ban exactly the same characters in our respective campaigns. And in a game where alignment can be detected (and can even be detected by degrees!), one can actually know who are evil and who are innocent, so moral relativism doesn't work for long in a standard D&D game (this is the "elves are evil!" route - eventually, upon realizing that elves are not evil, one has to either stop killing the elves or keep killing the innocent elves - the former is ceasing evil actions (and the first step to atonement), the latter is distasteful to me). One can make relativism work by taking alignment out, but then we have a whole new ball game. |
| Thorak04-04-05, 01:12 PM | Well, I think the PHB backs me up. " "Evil" implies hurting, oppressing, and killing others." Check. "People who are neutral have compunctions against killing the innocent but lack the commitment to make sacrifices to protect or help others. Neutral people are committed ot others by personal relationships. A neutral person may sacrifice himself to protect his family or even his homeland, but he would not sdo so for starngers who are not related to him." This is all under the Good Vs. Evil section of the alignment part of the phb, and is what I base my criterion on. And, to cite some other bits right back at you, from the LE description; "He cares about tradition, loyalty, and order, but not about freedom, dignity, or life. He plays by the rules without mercy or compassion. He is comfortable in a hierarchy and would like to rule, but is willing to serve." That definitely seems workable as a party member. He respects and desires loyalty. And the cheapest and most reliable form of loyalty is friendship. He may not be the bestest friend in the whole world, not the guy you'd go to because Suzy broke up with you, because he'll tell you to grow up and be a man. But if someone screwed you, he'll be the guy who'll come up with a sadistically horrible plan for vengeance, just because he enjoys it. Heck, he might come up with one for Suzy. The "serial killing", "baby torturing" and "raping" falls under the 2nd way of being evil - it implies one possibly could get along with others (a team of serial killers, baby-torturers and rapists, perhaps), but is distasteful to me and for that reason is not allowed in my campaigns. I admit I was being extreme to make a point, but I have played evil characters in campaigns who, while they had very few compunctions about anything, were loyal to those few people who had backed them up. It was less serial killing, and more being open to doing whatever it takes, and screw this "because they'd be thankful" garbage. And I can just keep upping the ante with the "money" bribe until you agree that an evil character would betray his friends. Imagine that the money is enough to retire forever. Imagine that it is enough to retire and buy your own island/country/heck, planet or demi-plane. Now the temptation surely must be too great. There would be no need for a "next score" or "next job" so there would be no need for these friends; "I think the usefulness of our partnership has come to an end...". Or one might switch to the side one is betraying one's friends TO, if that new side offers more long-term advantages. The guy in Payback betrayed the protagonist in order to join the Mafia, I believe (been a while since I saw that movie). At this point, I start wondering why they're offering me so much money to betray my friends. If they're worried we'll stop them, maybe we should stop them. Especially since we might find that money on the way. Speaking of which, the modern mafia is having troubles precisely because people DO sell them out. Thus the mafia has to resort to fear tactics like "I kill you and your whole family!" rather than "family loyalty" tactics. Because they hire people that are "evil" rather than "neutral". That's a specific case, today. This wasn't true all that long ago. And the guys ratting them out are fairly few and far between, you don't have most of the mafia members talking to the police about selling out. Also, evil characters don't have to "torture beggars" all the time in my campaign to be evil. If one EVER tortures a known innocent, he has just taken the trip into evil land, do not pass go, you are an NPC. Again, think of your reaction to a friend that tells you he once raped someone, or once tortured a known innocent. Or, at least, please understand what mine would be. Okay, but what if he told you he tortured a rapist neo-nazi, because the one thing he can't stand is scum that hurt women. And he enjoyed it. Does the victim make a difference? Magneto might not be a good example, as he was regularly trying to kill the X-Men. On the other hand, he did have the whole "Brotherhood of Evil Mutants" deal going for a while. This leads to the idea of all humans being perceived as the enemy by the "oppressed race" of mutants. The idea is that one might go TOO far, even if one's race has been oppressed. Thus one would have to be stopped (by the "Good" X-men -- although I am not sure if the early Magneto did much EXCEPT try to kill the X-Men). At least with his later persona, Magneto's drive wasn't to kill the X-Men, they just kept trying to stop him because he was trying to kill most of humanity. That's why he and Professor Xavier were friends; the only thing that kept them from being good friends was the sheer opposition of their causes, if they were both in an old folks home, they'd be great buddies. But what is interesting about Magneto is that he was sometimes straying towards neutral, depending precisely upon how he treated normal humans and those mutants that opposed his cause (when he got granted his own "mutant" island for a while, for instance). Of course, he sometimes also strayed towards insanity...That's where the alignment graph would come in, depending on who was writing Magneto that day. But Marvel comics has no handy alignment graph, nor "Detect Evil" spells, nor, alas, consistant writers. I disagree. IMHO, Magneto was consistently evil, he just waffled on how baby-killing-evil he was. I agree evil does not equal insanity. But if someone tortures babies (even once), they are both evil and distasteful, and hence not in my campaign. If someone targets an innocent group of people for death, they are evil, and good people (who protect innocents) would have to oppose them. People who did not even want to oppose them are called Neutral by the phb definition. That hopefully explains why evil and good characters would not get along for long. Not without a really good reason. Like, say, Galactus wanting to devour the Earth. To keep the example going. Makes for a great "You can't destroy the world, I can't rule it with an iron fist if you do!" dynamic. If someone is evil, and neither does distasteful actions (such as harming innocents detectable as such) nor is even capable of betraying one of their friends, then I don't see where they are evil anymore. Again, what would make them evil? Their "I am evil" T-shirts? :D Their willingness to kill anyone who gets in their way. If you went through a combat, and killed off all the orcs, and then one turned out to be not-quite-so-dead and begged for mercy, it would be against their alignment for Good characters to kill him. The Evil character would, the moment their back is turned, slit the orc's throat, knowing that they can't risk taking the beast along. Or, if they need to steal a diamond, he'll have no problem with killing the guards. Keeps em quieter longer and more surely than anything else, right? Even Neutrals would have problems with this. |
| roguebfl04-04-05, 02:56 PM | Magneto as Stan Lee desgnine him never wafed on about how evil he was. Nor once did any of his plans centre areoudn kill the X-men (sure they had conginacy plans that invled kill the X-men if they interfired). he called the Brother Hood of Evil muntants, that to be ironic "because thats how the public viewd muntants". The key point to his Charcter is He could always be reasoned with, in the end. He belvied he was fight an undeclared war. and his perception where coloured by the fact was a survivoer of Auschwitz, and simply did not trust humanity not to repeat it with muntants. He was must deftly a "neutral" on the good/evil. |
| Thorak04-04-05, 09:38 PM | Magneto as Stan Lee desgnine him never wafed on about how evil he was. Nor once did any of his plans centre areoudn kill the X-men (sure they had conginacy plans that invled kill the X-men if they interfired). he called the Brother Hood of Evil muntants, that to be ironic "because thats how the public viewd muntants". The key point to his Charcter is He could always be reasoned with, in the end. He belvied he was fight an undeclared war. and his perception where coloured by the fact was a survivoer of Auschwitz, and simply did not trust humanity not to repeat it with muntants. He was must deftly a "neutral" on the good/evil. I don't know where you come from, but wanting to induce genocide on levels that would have made even Hitler shudder, and being willing to kill anyone who stands in his way, makes him pretty darn evil. He's just an understandable one. Which is my point; evil isn't (necessarily) insane and psychotic. It can be quite understandable. |
| roguebfl04-04-05, 09:41 PM | I don't know where you come from, but wanting to induce genocide on levels that would have made even Hitler shudder, and being willing to kill anyone who stands in his way, makes him pretty darn evil. He's just an understandable one. Which is my point; evil isn't (necessarily) insane and psychotic. It can be quite understandable. I said as Sten Lee wrote him 8) I'm not talking about some other writers (like the writer of the movie) it was Apocloyles that was the mass genoside. Magneto only wanted indendance. |
| Seeker9504-04-05, 11:17 PM | Seeker: You have this twisted idea that somehow, in some sense, Evil is associated with killing, or hating, or even mildly dislking your Good teammates.You're only partly right. My view of evil in Dungeons & Dragons is:From the SRD: "Evil" implies hurting, oppressing, and killing others. Some evil creatures simply have no compassion for others and kill without qualms if doing so is convenient. Others actively pursue evil, killing for sport or out of duty to some evil deity or master.If you think that's a twisted idea, blame the core rules, not me. Since the core rules make no distinction between killing teammates and "killing others", I see no need to either. Evil has nothing to do with your teammates. It has to do with your actions. |
| aleph_woodenglenn04-04-05, 11:48 PM | ^ see above. indeed the PHB defines Evil as far as DnD goes very clearly. we cannot solve complex debates over moral relativism here...if we could, we would be ethics scholastics and not mere dnd players. Accordingly, the ease with which a character undertakes hurting, oppressing or killing is the measure ov evil. In this sense it is true that most adventurers would seem largely evil (for doing same to "the bad guys"). What one must look at is the motivation. Killing someone in self defense is a rather fair reason to kill, most would argue. Even a Paladin who is sworn to defend against evil would probably not slay a helpless creature, even if the creature is likely a strong evil threat. Evil in DnD is about hurting other creatures that are not threatening, or who you have no fair reason to believe will threaten your life, freedom, or well being. This is not ethics class. Evil characters may not say that they are evil necessarily, but they show it by a disregard for others life, liberty, well-being and property. (i.e. if a PC commits a questionable act, whether the PC can honestly justify why an apparently evil act is not evil, should largely be in the hands of the DM...if it is razor thin, I would hope the moral dilemma would play out in-game with the character wherefrom the DM could make his ultimate choice) |
| Thorak04-05-05, 12:33 AM | I said as Sten Lee wrote him 8) I'm not talking about some other writers (like the writer of the movie) it was Apocloyles that was the mass genoside. Magneto only wanted indendance. I'm talking about the Magneto who wants to kill/subjugate all normal humans, because they cannot be trusted in their superior numbers with control, because they will use that control to lash out at the minority they fear. That's sort of Magneto's "thing". I'm not talking about completel human genocide, just the genocide of all normals. To Magneto, there's a difference. |
| Particle_Man04-05-05, 03:29 AM | I would not want a "Magneto" character in my campaign. I find genocide of a group (or sub-group) of people distasteful, particularly when such a group contains children that could not possibly be guilty of anything. Lawful Evil: "A lawful evil villain methodically takes what he wants within the limits of his code of conduct without regard to whom it hurts". That last clause is relevant, because it means that such a character could (and sometimes would) harm any of his "friends", provided that it is within the limits of his code of conduct. Being lawful, that code of conduct would likely include something like <if the "friends" break the rules/disobey the computer/etc., they are "fair game">. Is it possible to have a code of conduct like "1. Undying loyalty to every other person in my adventuring group, (no matter what they do?) 2. No raping, torturing, etc.". Possible. But unlikely. If the code of conduct bans enough evil actions, we arrive at Lawful Neutrality. And as far as definitions go, I would like there to be a distinction between LG and LN and LE such that soldiers would on the whole fall on the LN side of the equation more than the LE side, on the whole. Thus LN soldiers can kill enemy soldiers without "going evil", for instance. Neutral Evil: "She is out for herself, pure and simple." If this is not the paradigm of selfishness, what is? How can a party of selfish people stay together, knowing that the others are also selfish? They would betray each other in a heartbeat if it was in their advantage to do so, and the accounts of long-term self-interest listed above seem frankly to be stretching the point; from "my friends might be useful later" to "how do I trust those I am betraying my friends to", it is quite possible to find answers to those that would satisfy all but the most paranoid of NE characters, and the most paranoid of NE characters would not trust her "friends" in the first place. Chaotic Evil: "does whatever his greed, hatred, and lust for destruction drive him to do."..."can be made to work toegether only by force, and their leader lasts only so long as he can thwart attempts to topple or assassinate him." No real long-term party unity here. So the only possible party members that have even a shot at long-term play from the Evil side would be Lawful Evil. And I think that even here, the time of betrayal would simply be delayed, as the evil characters find a way to use the rules (or an overly-literal interpretation of their code) to find loopholes to betray their "friends" when it was expedient to do so, down to setting up situations in which they would get rid of their "friends" while technically obeying their code. So what is the result? Evil characters, even LE characters, require more work from the DM to maintain party unity. Either the DM has to contrive cases where enlightened self-interest mandates that the characters cooperate...for now...or else the DM has to provide the threat of overwhelming force (either the "I am the leader and I am too powerful for you to harm or hide from", or the "our planet will be destroyed if we do not ally, and you have no way to hide from the destruction" to mandate cooperation...for now. Both are likely to be short-term, and I don't want to run a campaign where I have to work to make them long-term. Now lets look at a good/neutral party. Suddenly it is WAYYY easier to get them all to work together. I have almost no worries about a character betraying the party, so don't have to use the "enlightened self-interest" carrot or the "band together for survival" stick. I don't have to worry that X will (or even might) set Y up for a likely fatal situation, or frame Y for the murder of Z, just to get Y out of the way (assume all are pc's) and ensure a larger share of the party treasure of X. So it is a lot less work for me. Thus, I don't allow evil characters in my campaign. Period. You have failed to convince me that I would have any more enjoyment if I did so, and my players seem to be enjoying their characters. On the other hand, if you run a campaign that allows evil characters, or play an evil character, don't let me stop you. As I said earlier, different strokes for different folks. |
| Thorak04-05-05, 09:20 AM | So what is the result? Evil characters, even LE characters, require more work from the DM to maintain party unity. Either the DM has to contrive cases where enlightened self-interest mandates that the characters cooperate...for now...or else the DM has to provide the threat of overwhelming force (either the "I am the leader and I am too powerful for you to harm or hide from", or the "our planet will be destroyed if we do not ally, and you have no way to hide from the destruction" to mandate cooperation...for now. Both are likely to be short-term, and I don't want to run a campaign where I have to work to make them long-term. 1> It's not the DM's job to make the PCs cooperate. If they do, they do. If they don't, they won't party in the first place, and the player has nobody to blame but himself for making an antisocial character. If you're forcing PCs to work together when their natural inclination is to not do so, of course you're running into trouble. 2> I guarantee I can make a character of any alignment who is far more disruptive to party unity, while being perfectly within his alignment, than an evil character is forced to be by his alignment. Now lets look at a good/neutral party. Suddenly it is WAYYY easier to get them all to work together. I have almost no worries about a character betraying the party, so don't have to use the "enlightened self-interest" carrot or the "band together for survival" stick. I don't have to worry that X will (or even might) set Y up for a likely fatal situation, or frame Y for the murder of Z, just to get Y out of the way (assume all are pc's) and ensure a larger share of the party treasure of X. So it is a lot less work for me. So here's Agrak, the Lawful Neutral Human Fighter, who's a racist pig and sneers and spits at any non-humans who try to talk to him, and who will watch them like a hawk so he can report them to the guards on the merest hint of illegal activity. He also is entirely convinced that his moral outlook is the ideal one, and will loudly denounce anyone who either acts contrary to it, or even mentions the possibility. He insists on making all decisions for the party, and will deride anyone who tries to take control from him, even if he's obviously doing a bad job. More so, because he needs to show that he will eventually be right. And he smells bad. As opposed to Theodr, the Lawful Evil Human Fighter. He's a relatively nice guy, most of the time, because he's well aware that you catch more flies with honey, especially since it costs him nothing. The moment anyone crosses him or his friends, though, he will stop at nothing to enact hideous revenge on them, their families, and even their friends if the offense is bad enough. He doesn't seek out reasons to hurt people, but he has absolutely no compunctions about using pain to enact his own personal idea of justice. Sure, if his friends cross him, they become enemies and he will act against them as such, but unless they do he is loyal, and holds their loyalty in high regard, and will do what it takes to maintain that loyalty and, dare I say, friendship. Who would you rather, the racist zealot who angers any nonhumans, and many humans, you encounter, let alone in the party, or the guy who seems pretty normal, but who you don't ever want to cross? Thus, I don't allow evil characters in my campaign. Period. You have failed to convince me that I would have any more enjoyment if I did so, and my players seem to be enjoying their characters. On the other hand, if you run a campaign that allows evil characters, or play an evil character, don't let me stop you. As I said earlier, different strokes for different folks. I'm not trying to say that you should let people play an Evil character. Often, it's just an excuse to be an arse to the party. I'm saying that it's not required to be as bad as you claim; evil characters can be just as helpful in a party as good. There may be conflicts over methods, but that's what makes a story interesting, conflict. If it didn't, D&D games would be about farming in nice weather with no complications. |
| Particle_Man04-05-05, 10:41 AM | 1> It's not the DM's job to make the PCs cooperate. If they do, they do. If they don't, they won't party in the first place But *I* have an easier time as DM making adventures if the PC's cooperate. I also don't have to worry about TPK's or half-TPK's as often. I can also plan adventures "tuned to the characters" because it is likely (though not guaranteed) that they will survive longer. So here's Agrak, the Lawful Neutral Human Fighter, who's a racist pig and sneers and spits at any non-humans who try to talk to him, and who will watch them like a hawk so he can report them to the guards on the merest hint of illegal activity. I consider Agrak to be Lawful Evil in your example. He also is entirely convinced that his moral outlook is the ideal one, Irrelevant to my judgement of his alignment. and will loudly denounce anyone who either acts contrary to it, or even mentions the possibility. He insists on making all decisions for the party, and will deride anyone who tries to take control from him, even if he's obviously doing a bad job. More so, because he needs to show that he will eventually be right. And he smells bad. The fact that a character can be so disruptive that I will ban him (and I *will* ban "make into NPC" the character, though not the player) even if he is not evil, does not change my views of *also* banning evil characters. As opposed to Theodr, the Lawful Evil Human Fighter. He's a relatively nice guy, most of the time, because he's well aware that you catch more flies with honey, especially since it costs him nothing. The moment anyone crosses him or his friends, though, he will stop at nothing to enact hideous revenge on them, their families, and even their friends if the offense is bad enough. And this is where we get into the "hideous? sounds too disgusting to appeal to my delicate sensibilities. BANNED" stage of why I won't allow evil characters. Remember, I will ban characters that are EITHER party disruptive OR that do things I find disgusting OR both. Evil characters are so likely to be one or the other that I have no qualms about a blanket ban. I will also ban/NPC'ize characters that turn out to be party disruptive, or who do things I find disgusting, later in play. Who would you rather, the racist zealot who angers any nonhumans, and many humans, you encounter, let alone in the party, or the guy who seems pretty normal, but who you don't ever want to cross? See, I don't see myself as having to choose. Both would be banned. evil characters can be just as helpful in a party as good. There may be conflicts over methods, but that's what makes a story interesting, conflict. If it didn't, D&D games would be about farming in nice weather with no complications. I disagree that evil characters can be as helpful to the party, except in either short-term or contrived situations, but I see that I won't convince you of that and you won't convince me otherwise. And oddly enough, I and my players find interesting conflicts in "killing the evil monsters and taking their stuff", which can have its own complications. :) They can also still have verbal disagreements, at the level of Tolkein "Gimli vs. Legolas" squabbles. (Even at the book level, rather than the slightly more light-hearted movie level). But they don't have to worry about each other. Or, for that matter, walk on eggshells around each other because they don't want to "Set the LE character off by 'breaking his rules' ". The storylines are interesting, or so my players tell me. I see no reason to pick up a happy baby, rock the apple cart, etc. |
| StormKnight04-05-05, 03:52 PM | That's fine if it works for you, but I personally would never play under you or your friend as DMs un;ess there were no other options. It's an insult to the game and to balance to say there can be no Evil. Seeker: You have this twisted idea that somehow, in some sense, Evil is associated with killing, or hating, or even mildly dislking your Good teammates. Plenty of evil characters love good characters, especially becasue the good tend to be so... trusting. As an LE Dwarf in another DM's campaign, I have gotten into a groupwhere we all have different ideals, but we accept that and move on (to a point. At some times we fight. But usually it's all good). I can be evil becase I am on a quest to murder every blond-haired blue-eyed human I see. I kill them without mercy or question. I am most definitely evil, but if I pose some sort of benefit to the group, they'd keep me, and provided that they're not of the proper description, they stay alive. Evil hates Good about as much as Chaos hates Law. If you stick everybody into the same set of alignments you're no longer DMming, you're playing House in a dungeon where dragons occasionaly try to take your good china. Without alignment and internal conflict, the game is no longer fun. How about if we rephrase this to: That's fine if it works for you, but I personally would never play under you or your friend as DMs un;ess there were no other options. It's an insult to the game and to balance to say there can be no 20th level characters in the first level party.. Seeker: You have this twisted idea that somehow, in some sense, 20th level is capable of making useless, or outpowering, or even mildly overshadowing your 1st level teammates. Plenty of 20th level characters love 1st level characters, especially becasue the 1st levelers tend to be so... expendable. As a 20th level Dwarf in another DM's campaign, I have gotten into a groupwhere we all have different levels, but we accept that and move on (to a point. At some times they sit back bored and watch. But usually it's all good). If you stick everybody into the same set level you're no longer DMming, you're playing some boardgame since everything is perfectly even. If you want a game that's about a good party, you want a good party. Simple as that. I do agree that mixed personalities can make a group interesting, and so can conflict. And not all evil characters need to be obviously evil or incapable of working with the party. However, if a group mixes good or evil either their will be stagnation with no one really changing, or eventually the situation will break apart - either one part of the group will convert, the group will split, or the group will wind up at each other's throats. Though since the character you describe is not just evil but a deranged psychotic, I can't really seem him lasting long with many good parties. I don't assume good = trusting either. Or that they have to trust you to work with you. |
| Thorak04-05-05, 09:46 PM | But *I* have an easier time as DM making adventures if the PC's cooperate. I also don't have to worry about TPK's or half-TPK's as often. I can also plan adventures "tuned to the characters" because it is likely (though not guaranteed) that they will survive longer. Again, evil doesn't mean uncooperative. There's plenty of completely selfish reasons to be perfectly cooperative. I consider Agrak to be Lawful Evil in your example. Why? He doesn't hurt, kill, or oppress anyone. He just expresses his dislike for them in a very obvious way. If he were reporting them to the guards on false charges, he'd be oppressing them. He makes sure they do something, first. I don't see how Agrak qualifies as evil in any way. I believe you're equating "distasteful and unlikeable" with "evil". I could just as easily have talked about Fander, the Lawful Good Paladin, who won't shut up about how you always have to do the right thing, and giving any party member who ever acts selfishly or chaotically a long, stern lecture on their moral failings, and how they should follow Fander's sterling example. Irrelevant to my judgement of his alignment. As it should be, this was only there because Agrak will argue that he's right till he's blue in the face with anyone who disagrees with him. It doesn't make him actually right, it was just descriptive of his beliefs. The fact that a character can be so disruptive that I will ban him (and I *will* ban "make into NPC" the character, though not the player) even if he is not evil, does not change my views of *also* banning evil characters. My point was that the reasons you ban characters have absolutely nothing to do with all evil. They have to do with a stereotypical, cartoon-villain caricature of evil. Not that they're bad reasons. Just that you're judging too quickly on assumptions that simply don't hold up, when you say "no evil characters", if those are your reasons. And this is where we get into the "hideous? sounds too disgusting to appeal to my delicate sensibilities. BANNED" stage of why I won't allow evil characters. Remember, I will ban characters that are EITHER party disruptive OR that do things I find disgusting OR both. Evil characters are so likely to be one or the other that I have no qualms about a blanket ban. I will also ban/NPC'ize characters that turn out to be party disruptive, or who do things I find disgusting, later in play. I suggest you don't go see Sin City, then. I based Theodr loosely on Marv, though Theodr's a nicer guy. And Marv comes off in the film as Chaotic Neutral. He feels bad about hurting cops trying to arrest them, because they might be honest cops tricked into attacking him, but he's absolutely vicious to people who cross him. Even if you were to claim he's evil based on his actions, he still comes off as a character you can empathize with and root for. See, I don't see myself as having to choose. Both would be banned. And I don't understand why Theodr's banned. He's perfectly compatible, and supportive, of a party. You seem to be trying to say that your player's character can only be motivated by things you want them to be, and act the way you want them to. Why are you bothering with players, in this case? If you want that much control, write a novel. I disagree that evil characters can be as helpful to the party, except in either short-term or contrived situations, but I see that I won't convince you of that and you won't convince me otherwise. And oddly enough, I and my players find interesting conflicts in "killing the evil monsters and taking their stuff", which can have its own complications. :) They can also still have verbal disagreements, at the level of Tolkein "Gimli vs. Legolas" squabbles. (Even at the book level, rather than the slightly more light-hearted movie level). But they don't have to worry about each other. Or, for that matter, walk on eggshells around each other because they don't want to "Set the LE character off by 'breaking his rules' ". See, there's nothing about being LE that makes you a trigger-happy psychotic just waiting for someone to break one of his rules. That's a cartoon caricature. It's as accurate a description of LE as saying all LG characters are religious zealots who spend all day preaching at everyone about goodness and order. The storylines are interesting, or so my players tell me. I see no reason to pick up a happy baby, rock the apple cart, etc. What if the baby starts crying, i.e. a player wants the challenge of playing an evil character who still remains a strong party player? You're suggesting that you should just let the dang baby cry, because picking it up to find out what's wrong is bad. Heck, there's plenty of examples in fiction of what I'm talking about. Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles. C.S. Friedman's Coldfire trilogy. Black Mage, from 8-bit theatre. Evil isn't incompatible with Good. Not necessarily. It's not that hard to find reasons to work together. |
| Manyfist04-05-05, 11:32 PM | Me, I am Lawful Evil irl, since I wish to have a Strong Leadership for the Earth, under one Elected Leader. Then we can protect against the occasional random Alein Attacks(if it happens) or we could orginize as an Empire, develop the space travel tech. then bamn across the Solor System we could impose are LE views. My Dwarf barbarian is NE, even though I haven't RPed with him much, He's good natured, but greedy. Like we had the opition to stop the almost raping of the sorcerer by Were Rats, me and the rouge didn't do squat. It was the Bard(DM) that actually put the end to it, he Did get a Half-Orc ***** on his forehead though, we laughed our Arses off. NE doesn't mean, yeah you pay me to kill my friends, sure I will 'kill' my friends. Take the gold, go kill some random hooker on the street, make the Sorcerer, or Rouge make it look like them, cut off the heads and present it to the guy, get the rest of the money. Keep most the gold and give the rest to you're companions, NE. As the Tank, I have to say that NE is a good alignment, you don't care if some one gets in your way you kill them any how. Also, several Bugbears were destroying the city, tavern was on fire, I scared off two bugbears, jumped over another one, then Jump out the window. But before that I got the Sorcerer in Trouble for messing with me, I started a Bar Brawl, punched a fellow Dwarf to death, KO a Half-Orc... then the Bugbear Incedent. It's good being NE. |
| Particle_Man04-06-05, 01:53 AM | Why? He doesn't hurt, kill, or oppress anyone. He just expresses his dislike for them in a very obvious way. If he were reporting them to the guards on false charges, he'd be oppressing them. He makes sure they do something, first. I don't see how Agrak qualifies as evil in any way. Under Lawful Evil in phb: "He condemns other snot according to their actions but according to race, religion, homeland, or social rank." Racist = Evil. I believe you're equating "distasteful and unlikeable" with "evil". I could just as easily have talked about Fander, the Lawful Good Paladin, who won't shut up about how you always have to do the right thing, and giving any party member who ever acts selfishly or chaotically a long, stern lecture on their moral failings, and how they should follow Fander's sterling example. I have less problem with this character, as he would not get beyond the verbal stage with my other pc's as long as they did not break the local laws, and pc's that were chaotic would know better because the paladin is so honest. Other characters might even be inspired by Fander, and Fander might learn that other characters can be good in their own ways. This is the kind of conflict + character development I can live with. My point was that the reasons you ban characters have absolutely nothing to do with all evil. They have to do with a stereotypical, cartoon-villain caricature of evil. I think that most players would quickly cross the line beyond a point I would feel comfortable with. And if there is that 1 in a 1000 LE character that works with the party, I am willing to take the chance that I miss that brilliant episode of roleplaying in order to avoid the headaches of evil characters that can arise, and are more likely to arise. Luckily, my players can come up with other character concepts that fit my campaigns. And Marv comes off in the film as Chaotic Neutral. He feels bad about hurting cops trying to arrest them, because they might be honest cops tricked into attacking him, but he's absolutely vicious to people who cross him. Banned. :) And I don't understand why Theodr's banned. Banned because of "hideous" actions to enemies. Goes beyond what is acceptable to me. See, there's nothing about being LE that makes you a trigger-happy psychotic just waiting for someone to break one of his rules. Maybe not, but evil = selfish and I don't want selfish characters. I also don't want characters that do "hideous" things to others. By banning evil characters I get rid of both. Go me! What if the baby starts crying, i.e. a player wants the challenge of playing an evil character who still remains a strong party player? Then the baby dies (the player finds another campaign). No evil characters in my campaign, period. Heck, there's plenty of examples in fiction of what I'm talking about. Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles. C.S. Friedman's Coldfire trilogy. Black Mage, from 8-bit theatre. Evil isn't incompatible with Good. Not necessarily. It's not that hard to find reasons to work together. Anne Rice Vampires: Banned. Actually, all Vampires: Banned. Black Mage: Banned. And...(haven't read it (or even heard of it), but just because you listed it as examples of evil characters), Characters from C.S. Friedman's Coldfire trilogy: Banned. See how simple that was? :) And yet there are so very many other characters that my players can play, so many other fictional tropes that they can draw upon, that they never miss the "evil" ones. Not even the "White Wolf 'evil but I work with the party and wear black and am kewl' " type of evil. :) |
| Vahenir04-06-05, 02:04 AM | Under Lawful Evil in phb: "He condemns other snot according to their actions but according to race, religion, homeland, or social rank." Racist = Evil. So what about the Racist Neutral Good Elf who condemns Orcs as bloodthirsty savages? So he's Evil and is not allowed in your party? And DON'T pull that "Orcs are always evil" thing either. Says right up there, condemning someone according to their RACE is EVIL. Uh-oh. That's a big problem for every adventuring group that killed a group of Orcs without finding out IF they were Evil first. Although.. maybe they're Evil for worshipping Gruumsh. That's condemning someone due to RELIGION.. that's also Evil. What about the racist guy that helps everyone he meets (except for members of that particular race), loves his family, has a lot of friends, and goes on quests, free of charge, to recover artifacts for good churches. Did I mention he's extremely cooperative and usually good natured? He's Evil? Wow. And here's just a few things I'd like to bring up, from the SRD: "Evil characters and creatures debase or destroy innocent life, whether for fun or profit." Note the usage of the word 'or.' Destroying life is not a requisite to being Evil. It only says that Evil has that tendency. Also note the second "or." Meaning, you do not HAVE to do it for fun... if it profits you. "Some evil creatures simply have no compassion for others and kill without qualms if doing so is convenient." Note the "some" and 'if doing so is convenient." Killing people that you've grown to enjoy, or who aid you in your quest to eat babies, is not convienent. Especially when they're nearly as powerful as you and killing them could be dangerous. Or just because you like them. NOTHING about the description of Evil states that you cannot like or love other people. Nothing. "People who are neutral with respect to good and evil have compunctions against killing the innocent but lack the commitment to make sacrifices to protect or help others. " A Neutral character would not kill people for profit or out of convienence. They don't kill the innocent, they often just lack the commitment to actively protect them. Oh and I've noticed, I believe, that you used the 'Archetypical Nine Alignments' out of context. By quoting the "Tyrant" or one of those other things (I might be wrong). The fact is, the Nine Alignments descriptions are NOT descriptions of that alignment, but descriptions of an archetypical character of that alignment. You're even encouraged that not all members will act that way. From the SRD, about the "The Nine Alignments" section: "Each alignment description below depicts a typical character of that alignment. Remember that individuals vary from this norm, and that a given character may act more or less in accord with his or her alignment from day to day. Use these descriptions as guidelines, not as scripts." Bolding is mine, of course. |
| Mr. Wilson04-06-05, 02:46 AM | Maybe not, but evil = selfish and I don't want selfish characters. I also don't want characters that do "hideous" things to others. By banning evil characters I get rid of both. Go me! Then the baby dies (the player finds another campaign). No evil characters in my campaign, period. Anne Rice Vampires: Banned. Actually, all Vampires: Banned. Black Mage: Banned. And...(haven't read it (or even heard of it), but just because you listed it as examples of evil characters), Characters from C.S. Friedman's Coldfire trilogy: Banned. See how simple that was? :) And yet there are so very many other characters that my players can play, so many other fictional tropes that they can draw upon, that they never miss the "evil" ones. Not even the "White Wolf 'evil but I work with the party and wear black and am kewl' " type of evil. :) Why are you DMIng then? You clearly want to tell the story you constructed by the means you want. Write a freaking book and be done with it. Right now, the party I DM has 2 LE characters, a CG character moving towards NG, and A TN character. Guess what, they work fine together. You just *really* don't want to cross them. My favorite character of all time was LE. Great to the party, spiteful and mean to those who got in his way. But the party loved him and he them. No where does it state evil can't love or hold friendships. Evil can and will do those things. Only devils and demons constitute true evil. Besides some of the Evil you describe is Chaotic, not evil. Are you banning Chaotic characters as well? |
| Thorak04-06-05, 09:19 AM | Seriously, Particle_man, I have to wonder why you bother playing D&D. You seem so touchy on what you consider "distasteful", that I have to wonder how you can possibly condone slaughtering orcs by hacking them apart, or roasting them alive with magical fire. What we're discussing isn't differences in methods, just differences in motives. A Lawful Good paladin is just as capable of wading in and creating fountains of blood and gore as an evil character. You're confusing actions with morality. |
| psionichamster04-06-05, 10:23 AM | with regards to the whole "decides a race is bad, thus is evil" argument... every single ranger is then evil. favored enemy? well, that's a "race"...since they are concentrating on defeating them (usually by means of blades/fangs/arrows) they're evil. paladins? well, they got that holy smite ability..it only works on evil, and evil is a code/creed/religion. once you use that smite...poof, evil ex-paladin you see where this goes, if you take it to the logical conclusion? you can't play any character, at all... as far as the "personally distasteful" description...sure, i'll buy that...just don't expect to get too many new applicants for your game. as far as banning evil outright...i once ran a d20 modern style game with a LOT of rules "revisions" (basically, i took dnd 3.5e, didn't read the rules closely enough, then slapped a couple other systems on top to make it all the more confusing...) the introduction of the tiefling rogue (CN or CE, IIRC) ended up with the bard's gun to his temple and the tiefling completely asleep. (the bard pulled the trigger, nat'l 1...that got the point across that "if you're gonna be evil, be sneaky about it...or expect to get shot in the head) to each his own, but for me, evil characters are JUST as possible and valid a choice as good or neutral...just make sure you don't do anything overtly evil (and thus stupid) where you can get caught. (and yes, this includes hiding the bodies from the party when needed...) as far as evil/good coexistance...had a NE rog/assassin and a CG barb/ranger/order of the bow initiate once...Cess and Grey Wolf respectively. they hated one another...C would call GW "the old man" and work hard to get him robbed/rolled in town GW repeatedly did things to blow her pickpocketing and sneaky sneaky in-town missions. but they never screwed with party survivability...they never got in each other's way in combat, always fought back-to-back (figuratively, since the OoBI had a distance bow...yeesh) to this day, we still go over how that "fight" would have played out... is it likely to happen, if we go back to that game?...not really is it believable, in a PC to PC manner? of course did it break my game? on the contrary, it made it all the more memorable but i think it all boils down to the prime directive of adventuring...DON'T BE STUPID! namaste, the hamster |
| Particle_Man04-06-05, 11:48 AM | Why are you DMIng then? You clearly want to tell the story you constructed by the means you want. Write a freaking book and be done with it. Because my players love the game and insist that I DM it. Believe me, they have no problems with my restriction (in fact, at one point I had 10 players at the table! Luckily for my sanity, I normally have only 7). And they feel no restriction to their free will. To do some silly math, by taking away 1/3 of the character alignments I leave the character with 2/3 of the available character concepts. But there are potentially infinite character concepts. 2/3 of infinity is still infinity. Thus I don't get the "writing a novel" feeling when I DM. I think that your accusation therefore is groundless. Actually, the number is likely higher than 2/3. Again quoting the phb, (103) "Most player characters are good or neutral rather than evil. In general, evil alignments are for villains and monsters." This implies that I am not losing too much by cutting out evil PC's. I would rather have PC's be "the best alignment you can be" rather than "the most dangerous alignment you can be". :) Note that LE characters don't condemn creatures according to their actions, but by race, creed, etc. The implication is that good players would look at a creature's actions. Paladins don't run around killing anyone that detects as evil. But they will judge those that do evil actions. That would be the essential difference between the Paladin and the LE character. In 3.5, rangers don't necessarily hate their favoured enemies. They are just more efficient at hunting them. As for the paladin ability, remember that evil is an objective force in D&D that can be objectively measured. Some planes and outsiders are literally made of the stuff (think Time Bandits: "Concentrated Evil"). The paladin is not detecting a creed. He is detecting the presence of evil just as one might use magnets to detect the presence of iron. Smite evil would be the same as using a flaming sword against cold creatures. It is used because it works better to damage certain creatures. But if this is going to turn into a paladin discussion thread, then I already know how both sides will go, and it still will not change my mind, either about evil pc characters in my campaign, or about the allowed actions of paladins. I might also point out that, if someone has the ability to create an evil character that still functions with the party and doesn't offend my sensibilities, that same person is just as capable or more capable of creating a good or neutral character that functions with the party and doesn't offend my sensibilities. While one could make an anti-party non-evil character, one can also make a non-evil character that works with the party, and I submit that this would be easier to do for a player than to try the same with an evil player. |
| Thorak04-06-05, 05:53 PM | I might also point out that, if someone has the ability to create an evil character that still functions with the party and doesn't offend my sensibilities, that same person is just as capable or more capable of creating a good or neutral character that functions with the party and doesn't offend my sensibilities. While one could make an anti-party non-evil character, one can also make a non-evil character that works with the party, and I submit that this would be easier to do for a player than to try the same with an evil player. It's easier for most people to create and run half-orc barbarians, too. Easy /= better, or more fun. In fact, the opposite is often true. |
| Dan Hemmens04-06-05, 05:58 PM | It would, perhaps, be rather churlish of me to point out that this (rather lengthy) debate actually adds a whole lot of weight to my original point. To whit: D&D Alignment makes no sense whatsoever if you try to think of it in terms of actual morality Good wears white hats. Evil wears black hats. The Undead are evil despite being mindless, because zombies are yucky, and make good disposable minions. I am Neutral Evil in real life, because I dress in black, and that really all that alignment boils down to. |
| psionichamster04-06-05, 07:45 PM | i really don't see the whole "black hat/white hat" metaphor... nor do i see the "zombies are mindless, therefore are neutral" argument as given... to wit, dress and appearance have more to do with alignment than say, your birthday. but not much... heck, one convention game i played in, the paladin (LG, mind you, as paladins must be) wore black enameled armor, fought with a scythe and chakram, and looked very very scary did that have anything to do with her lawfulness, or goodness? of course not... as far as "actual" morality...there you are making a mistake DnD is a game. it has certain mechanics to facilitate the "fairness" of the game, as well as to adjudicate certain events that happen, in game. otherwise, you're playing pretend with your friends (fun, but not dnd...) and there's a lot of "i got you" "nuh-uh" "yeah i did" "no you didn't" and so forth. look at a couple 4 year-olds and observe how many times that discussion takes place... now, if you take the idea that DnD morality corresponds to "real world" morality or ethics, then you are set. good has a face...it's usually self-sacrificing, non-selfish, and cares about helping people and doing good things evil also has a face...it's usually self-serving, uncaring towards most others, and acts with the self in the place of absolute prime importance neutral acts like a bit of both, or simply removes themselves from the struggle... note: these "faces" of the aligned forces/people have NO BEARING on real world morality...and vice versa... try something like this, next time you're in court "well, yes, your honor, i did hit him with a sword. no, he didn't die right away, so i kept hitting him. my reasoning? well, he did detect as evil, and it is my charge from god to destroy evil on this world..." that's not gonna fly, and i don't suggest trying it, but it does illustrate the point. Kant, Aristotle, and the rest of their ilk never existed in DnD world. not unless the DM specifically makes a philosopher-based world, at least...or tries to approximate the current political-social-moral climates but the system DOES work, if you're careful with it, and as long as you follow the golden rule of alignment: Actions Dictate Alignment, Not The Other Way Around namaste, the hamster |
| Particle_Man04-06-05, 08:07 PM | Easy /= better, or more fun. In fact, the opposite is often true. None of my players has ever complained about a "lack of fun" in games I run. |
| totoro04-07-05, 03:05 AM | It would, perhaps, be rather churlish of me to point out that this (rather lengthy) debate actually adds a whole lot of weight to my original point. To whit: D&D Alignment makes no sense whatsoever if you try to think of it in terms of actual morality Good wears white hats. Evil wears black hats. The Undead are evil despite being mindless, because zombies are yucky, and make good disposable minions. I am Neutral Evil in real life, because I dress in black, and that really all that alignment boils down to. Almost. Really it just adds weight to the observation that some people confuse a relatively simple concept. If you can't define a term then decide whether people cross the line, you can't have laws. We have laws IRL. You can define a person as a criminal under certain circumstances as long as you understand the law. You can define a person as evil under certain circumstances as long as you understand the definition of evil. |
| Seeker9504-07-05, 09:07 AM | D&D Alignment makes no sense whatsoever if you try to think of it in terms of actual moralityClose. D&D Alignment makes no sense is you try to think of it in terms of relative morality. For those with a more or less absolute view of morality, D&D alignment is fine. There may be disagreements in the specific definitions, but there is no disagreement that the definition is static. |
| Thorak04-07-05, 09:23 AM | None of my players has ever complained about a "lack of fun" in games I run. Of course, that may be because they don't know any different. Since you're completely unwilling to let them try Evil characters, they have no idea whether they would be fun or not. It's like if a parent didn't let their kid watch TV or video games, ever. The kid might say they have tons of fun without TV or video games. But they can't say that, because they haven't been exposed to it. It may be that they would absolutely love TV and video games, and their parents have been unfairly denying them the option. I'm not saying your games aren't fun. I'm saying you can't claim that the degree of fun is unaffected by the restrictions you're artificially placing on your player's character and RP choices. Not unless your players also participate in an equally-rp-skilled DM's games in which they are allowed to play evil characters, and still prefer the restrictions. |
| Particle_Man04-07-05, 10:56 AM | Except that my players have played in other campaigns, some of which allow evil characters, and they still like my campaigns and have never complained about a lack of fun in my campaigns. The other DM's in question are not, in my opinion, inferior to me in RP-skills, and many of them have more experience than me. |
| Seeker9504-07-05, 12:17 PM | Of course, that may be because they don't know any different. Since you're completely unwilling to let them try Evil characters, they have no idea whether they would be fun or not.Whether they have ever played evil characters or not has nothing to do with whether they think they have fun. Your kids-and-video games analogy is even more useful in drawing the opposite conclusion. Kids who play video games and watch lots of TV seem incapable of having fun playing outside*. In general, the taste of "forbidden fruit" is wonderful. But it often makes the taste of the available/permitted fruit boring. If playing evil characters reduces the amount of fun you have playing non-evil characters, I think it would be better to avoid playing evil characters in the first place. *My nephews just returned from a trip to Colonial Williamsburg. When I asked them what they did on the trip, the only thing they shared with any enthusiasm was that on the way back, they broke their high score on gameboy. :rolleyes: |
| Thorak04-07-05, 01:49 PM | Whether they have ever played evil characters or not has nothing to do with whether they think they have fun. I know this, but I was pointing out Particle_man's similar fallacy, of claiming that denying the option doesn't reduce fun. My point was that you can't tell, because it's a closed system. Your kids-and-video games analogy is even more useful in drawing the opposite conclusion. Kids who play video games and watch lots of TV seem incapable of having fun playing outside*. Your nephews aside, I grew up with video games, all the way from the glory days of the Apple IIe we got when I was 7 or so. I also was active with Boy Scouts, enjoying camping regularly, and played sports through into high school, when I quit mostly due to issues with the competitiveness, which wasn't why I wanted to play. I never owned a gameboy, or any other portable device, nor did I really want to, because I enjoyed other stuff just fine. In general, the taste of "forbidden fruit" is wonderful. But it often makes the taste of the available/permitted fruit boring. If playing evil characters reduces the amount of fun you have playing non-evil characters, I think it would be better to avoid playing evil characters in the first place. It's more that, if I came up with a really neat character concept that was dark and foreboding, but still perfectly capable of working with a party, I'd be miffed that the DM just said "no" on completely superficial grounds without actually looking at the character. That's what reduces my amount of fun; restrictions on my options for no reason other than the DM's say-so. Because D&D isn't the DM's game. The DM is a storyteller and referee, that is it. It is as much the Players' game as the DM's. I'm perfectly willing to play with houserules, if the DM has a reason I can understand for them, even if I happen to disagree. Just saying "no" because you don't like it, though, isn't a reason. It's an excuse. What's next, I want to play a half-orc, and you say "no" because it's ugly? I want to play a Druid, and you say "no" because it's too powerful? I want to learn Fireball, but you don't want me to use Fire spells because fire hurts a lot? |
| Seeker9504-07-05, 02:34 PM | That's what reduces my amount of fun; restrictions on my options for no reason other than the DM's say-so. Because D&D isn't the DM's game. The DM is a storyteller and referee, that is it. It is as much the Players' game as the DM's.When you say that it isn't the DM's game, I disagree. It is *my* game. I am inviting other people to play in it. I didn't take a vote whether the game was set in Greyhawk or Eberron or the Forgettable Realms. I didn't take a vote as to who the BBEG is going to be. I presented the potential players with a brief description of the world, and shared with them my own approach: 1. Core PHB races only. 2. Core PHB classes only. 3. No PrC classes. 4. No evil PCs. 5. Core PHB spells only "at first". (Spells from other sources can be researched as per the research rules.) If any of the potential players didn't want to play in this game, no problem. I wasn't going to force them. But if they wanted to play, they knew, up front, what the parameters were. |
| Thorak04-07-05, 04:11 PM | When you say that it isn't the DM's game, I disagree. It is *my* game. I am inviting other people to play in it. I didn't take a vote whether the game was set in Greyhawk or Eberron or the Forgettable Realms. I didn't take a vote as to who the BBEG is going to be. I presented the potential players with a brief description of the world, and shared with them my own approach: 1. Core PHB races only. 2. Core PHB classes only. 3. No PrC classes. 4. No evil PCs. 5. Core PHB spells only "at first". (Spells from other sources can be researched as per the research rules.) If any of the potential players didn't want to play in this game, no problem. I wasn't going to force them. But if they wanted to play, they knew, up front, what the parameters were. My point being, they could say "Nah, that's too restrictive. Bob, you wanna dm?" D&D is a cooperative game. The DM is not god. He has to please his players and cater to their whims just as much as vice versa. Or he'll find himself without players. |
| roguebfl04-07-05, 05:58 PM | My point being, they could say "Nah, that's too restrictive. Bob, you wanna dm?" D&D is a cooperative game. The DM is not god. He has to please his players and cater to their whims just as much as vice versa. Or he'll find himself without players. And your not listing the fact that whicle it could happen, it practly never does. |
| Dan Hemmens04-07-05, 06:30 PM | Almost. Really it just adds weight to the observation that some people confuse a relatively simple concept. If you can't define a term then decide whether people cross the line, you can't have laws. We have laws IRL. You can define a person as a criminal under certain circumstances as long as you understand the law. You can define a person as evil under certain circumstances as long as you understand the definition of evil. That, however, is a meaningless statement. You can just as easily say "you can define a person as ugly under certain circumstances as long as you understand the definition of ugly" or indeed "you can define a person as poodlewhoppit under certain circumstances as long as you understand the definition of poodlewhoppit". Evil, like beauty, value, and a whole lot of other things, is a deeply subjective concept. And before you say "The PHB says..." I firmly consider the PHB to contain an awful lot that is nonsensical. To put it another way, when it comes to alignments, there are several options before us: (a) Alignment is absolute, and is defined as it is defined in the PHB In which case I would argue that the definitions given in the PHB are vague and silly, to the point of being useless. They also regularly lead to long, pointless flamewars where people say things like "the PHB says racism is <i>evil</i>, so if your character hates Drow then they're <i>evil</i>". The PHB definitions of Alignment have the problem that they essentially try to turn modern liberal sensibilities, which are based on a fairly flexible code of morality (in as much as it's generally accepted that people can do things that other people might consider "wrong" without either party being insane or evil), into an absolutist code of morality. This is an enterprise doomed to failure. You wind up saying things like "Religious intolerance is evil" on one page and "The following gods are evil, and so is anybody who worships them" on another. (b) Alignment is relative, and the definitions are just guidelines In which case it is once again largely useless. Thinking of a character as Good or Evil doesn't tell you anything about the character in a world with non-absolutist morality. (c) Alignment is absolute, but represents a literal alignment in a cosmic battle that is, to some extent, removed from morality This I actually accept to some extent, it falls down on a couple of levels, most notably that it doesn't usefully tell you what those "sides" are actually *like*. (d) Alignment is absolute, and yes, sometimes that means that some really messed up things count as "good" This one is seldom used, but it can work. Essentially it's a variant of the "sides in a cosmic war" argument, only more so. My last D&D campaign ran under this version of morality. It's mostly useful, however, if you *deliberately* want to play with alternative ideas about morality (yes it really *is* right to burn women at the stake for having Fiendish blood, regardless of their aligment - got a problem with that? So did the Blackguard you're fighting) (e) Alignment is a style issue Which is my preferred way of thinking about it. |
| Seeker9504-07-05, 08:27 PM | To put it another way, when it comes to alignments, there are several options before us: (a) Alignment is absolute, and is defined as it is defined in the PHB (b) Alignment is relative, and the definitions are just guidelines (c) Alignment is absolute, but represents a literal alignment in a cosmic battle that is, to some extent, removed from morality (d) Alignment is absolute, and yes, sometimes that means that some really messed up things count as "good" (e) Alignment is a style issue Which is my preferred way of thinking about it.However, any but the first requires that you re-define it as a houserule. Folks may have other preferences to alignment, but those preferences do not invalidate the core rule definition. And the best thing about the core rules definition of alignment is that no matter what state or country you live in, the definition is provided in the same Core Rule Book for everyone. |
| Thorak04-07-05, 10:54 PM | And your not listing the fact that whicle it could happen, it practly never does. Funny, I've walked from 2 different groups that didn't play a way I liked, and we've booted 2 players from the DM spot because they were doing a crap job of it. I'd rather have fun than suffer through some power-mad idiot's ravings just because he's decided he wants to DM. My group agrees. Both the current one, and my previous long-term one. It happens. If your DM sucks or he's overly restrictive, walk. There's no need to put up with it just because he's decided he wants to wear the DM hat. |
| Vahenir04-07-05, 11:06 PM | I'm with Thorak. I've seen people walk out of groups. Not with any hard feelings - but just because they didn't want to play the way everyone else was. I've also seen people ask DMs to step down because they wouldn't DM the kind of games the players wanted to play. The DM is not all-powerful. It's a group effort.. and if the group doesn't want to play a certain way - they will find a new DM that will cater to how they want to play. |
| roguebfl04-07-05, 11:55 PM | I'm with Thorak. I've seen people walk out of groups. Not with any hard feelings - but just because they didn't want to play the way everyone else was. I've also seen people ask DMs to step down because they wouldn't DM the kind of games the players wanted to play. The DM is not all-powerful. It's a group effort.. and if the group doesn't want to play a certain way - they will find a new DM that will cater to how they want to play. Where as I've seen People walking from said groups prout the saim reason, only after geting noone else in a 8 people group agree with them that the DM was bing overly restrictive. and felt the character that the peoson who walked was unsuitible for the group. That the reply to "Nah, that's too restrictive. Bob, you wanna dm" Bob say what you smoking, if you Find Core to restrictive you don't want to play under me" the point is not that DM is all powerful, it the DM put the most work into the game so ther opion is often given more weight, AND that people that have to play evil and/or non standard rases and/or class are far in the minorty |
| Murr-Quan Lord #204-08-05, 12:26 AM | Y'know, I hear an awful lot of people complain about the alignment system. They say that it straightjackets players, and that it's dumb anyway 'cause morality's relative. Whereas the Planescape 2e campaign setting, still going strong with the fans, was all about the alignment system. With each alignment as a force, as a place, and as a way of life. It's known for some of the most complex characters and in-depth roleplaying this side of anywhere, and was so insightful that it's just about a philosophical treatise. After becoming a fan of the planes, I no longer take these claims about the alignment system all that seriously. ^.^ |
| totoro04-08-05, 01:00 AM | That, however, is a meaningless statement. You can just as easily say "you can define a person as ugly under certain circumstances as long as you understand the definition of ugly" or indeed "you can define a person as poodlewhoppit under certain circumstances as long as you understand the definition of poodlewhoppit". That is correct. And you can refer to a statement as meaningless as long as you define the term "meaningless." Every single word you use is only meaningful because multiple people agree on a definition (a range for which the word is meaningful). Supposedly there are like 23 different ways to say snow in Eskimo, each with nuances you might not understand. Is there such thing as an apple? I mean every apple has a slightly different structure, slightly different coloration. How about defining races of human beings? That turns out to be a difficult task when you really try to come up with what it means to be race X. When is a pigeon a dove? As human beings, we are able to categorize large classes of things and cover them with a single word that occasionally overlap (e.g., when does a book become a pamphlet?). Those things sometimes include concepts, such as evil. Still, all of our words have definitions, or ranges of definitions. There are many definitions of evil. One of those definitions is a D&D definition. (Just because evil is defined for the purposes of playing a game doesn't make it illogical or nonsensical.) In fact, the definition seems fairly reasonable. Thankfully, since it would otherwise be difficult to use, in D&D evil is OBJECTIVE, based upon subjective intent. It is not difficult to understand or even apply the standard to any situation, just as it is not difficult to apply the standard of "malice" when determining whether a homocide is a murder (so long as you have sufficient evidence to determine intent). |
| Vahenir04-08-05, 01:11 AM | roguebfl: What you described can also happen. It's quite possible to feel unhappy with how a DM runs things and decide to leave, only to find you're the only one that feels that way. That's fine too. Find another group to play with who meshes with your style better. It isn't like school - DMs are not teachers. You don't "get stuck with what's there." If you don't like the way it's being played... find someone who plays more to your style. It's not rude, or mean, or petty. It's sensical. It makes -perfect- sense to find a game you feel that your style of play meshes with. Somewhere you can relax and enjoy the game the way you want to enjoy it. |
| Seeker9504-08-05, 11:17 AM | I'm with Thorak. I've seen people walk out of groups. Not with any hard feelings - but just because they didn't want to play the way everyone else was.I'm not with Thorak. But I agree that people can walk because they don't want to play the way the DM has required. It is the right of the player to walk. It is the right of the DM to set the ground rules. If your objective as DM is to DM for a specific group of people, obviously you need to cater to their needs. I created my world and then went shopping for players. I found them. They know my restrictions. Of the nine people that I invited to play over time, eight accepted the invitation -- even with the restriction. The ninth? Who cares. Thorak's view seems to assume that players are in short supply. My experience has been that they are not. Finding a DM when you want to paly appears to be much harder than finding players when you want to DM. And while in my younger days I might have wanted to play D&D with my friends, I am older now. I play D&D because I want to. It does not have to be with a specific group of people. |
| Thorak04-08-05, 12:01 PM | Thorak's view seems to assume that players are in short supply. My experience has been that they are not. Finding a DM when you want to paly appears to be much harder than finding players when you want to DM. And while in my younger days I might have wanted to play D&D with my friends, I am older now. I play D&D because I want to. It does not have to be with a specific group of people. That's probably the biggest difference; I play with friends, as a social thing as much as anything else. It's like video games; while everyone and their dog is playing online games these days against strangers, I've played them, and I frankly don't have as much fun as I did playing Doom 2 deathmatches in the Engineering computer lab with other guys in the lab. Partly because when someone sniped you, you could biff something at him. Again, it was as much a social thing as anything else. Not that I'm claiming the other way is worse, or my way better. It's just what I happen to enjoy most. |
| Dan Hemmens04-09-05, 10:52 AM | That is correct. And you can refer to a statement as meaningless as long as you define the term "meaningless." Every single word you use is only meaningful because multiple people agree on a definition (a range for which the word is meaningful). Supposedly there are like 23 different ways to say snow in Eskimo, each with nuances you might not understand. Is there such thing as an apple? I mean every apple has a slightly different structure, slightly different coloration. How about defining races of human beings? That turns out to be a difficult task when you really try to come up with what it means to be race X. When is a pigeon a dove? As human beings, we are able to categorize large classes of things and cover them with a single word that occasionally overlap (e.g., when does a book become a pamphlet?). Those things sometimes include concepts, such as evil. Still, all of our words have definitions, or ranges of definitions. Your point being? There are many definitions of evil. One of those definitions is a D&D definition. (Just because evil is defined for the purposes of playing a game doesn't make it illogical or nonsensical.) No, the fact that it is inconsistent, poorly thought out and, in places, almost entirely self-contradictory make it illogical and nonsensical. In fact, the definition seems fairly reasonable. Thankfully, since it would otherwise be difficult to use, in D&D evil is OBJECTIVE, based upon subjective intent. Which means... what? It is not difficult to understand or even apply the standard to any situation, just as it is not difficult to apply the standard of "malice" when determining whether a homocide is a murder (so long as you have sufficient evidence to determine intent). It is not difficult to understand, or to apply, but it is very, very difficult to take serously. |
| Gilean04-09-05, 02:34 PM | Thorak's view seems to assume that players are in short supply. My experience has been that they are not. Finding a DM when you want to paly appears to be much harder than finding players when you want to DM. And while in my younger days I might have wanted to play D&D with my friends, I am older now. I play D&D because I want to. It does not have to be with a specific group of people.Not every country is filled with people wanting to play RPGs, or even heard of them. Dan Hemmens, I quite agree with you. Just make your own definition of evil and be done with it. Or entirely remove the alignments. |
| Seeker9504-09-05, 04:08 PM | Not every country is filled with people wanting to play RPGs, or even heard of them.The fewer the number of people that play D&D, the fewer the number of DMs. The DM carries just as much "weight" in Finland as in the United States. S/He may have to cast a slightly wider net to find players, but it is still a DM-driven game.Dan Hemmens, I quite agree with you. Just make your own definition of evil and be done with it. Or entirely remove the alignments.How someone treats alignments in their game is 100% a DM decision. If Dan doesn't want alignments, or has issues with the core approach to alignments, of course he should change them. But he should only change them because he wants to. And on a more Thorak-side-issue aspect (a side-issue I have willingly and enjoyably taken up as well), whether a DM wants to or not can be based on DM preferences, campaign conditions, and yes, even player wishes. A DM may want to create a world the players have requested. But in the end, the world the players play in is whatever world the DM creates. ALL decisions ultimately come down to the DM, except one... if the players don't like the decisions, they can walk. Hopefully they will share their displeasure with the DM first. Not every decision a DM makes is etched in stone. But even the decision to change decisions is still up to the DM. Walking or playing are the players' two choices. Play if you like or can take the rules and requirements. Walk if you can't. |
| Gilean04-10-05, 08:50 AM | The fewer the number of people that play D&D, the fewer the number of DMs. The DM carries just as much "weight" in Finland as in the United States. S/He may have to cast a slightly wider net to find players, but it is still a DM-driven game.How someone treats alignments in their game is 100% a DM decision. If Dan doesn't want alignments, or has issues with the core approach to alignments, of course he should change them. But he should only change them because he wants to.Problem is the players, for me. There are too few who can claim not to be pure hack and slashers. |
| HypnoticMonk04-10-05, 02:51 PM | The DM can set any houserule they want to. The players have the choice to play or not. Would I play in a campaign where people were encouraged , or even simply allowed, to play evil characters? Nope. Would I run a game where evil characters are allowed? Maybe at gunpoint. Can I understand some of the enjoyment of that kind of game? Well, in this Grand Theft Auto playing world we live in, I suppose so ( although I won't ever play any video game or RPG where the protagonist is a bad guy. And to be somewhat contradictory , my favorite book series of all time are the Burke books by Andrew Vachss [ a non-fantasy, non-sci-fi book mentioned on this board?? BLASPHEMY!!!! :devil: ] where the "hero" is a career criminal of deep honor, but who has questionable morals. So yes I do get the "why" behind some of it.) Why don't I want to be part of an evil campaign? Well, in my view, my party or the party I am DMing is to be filled with "heroes".You can muddy the waters on me, you can have complex motivations and strangly nuanced personalities, but if you are one of the bad guys in my eyes, say byebye. Btw,Some irony lies in the idea that the player can commit a "chaotic" act if they try to play a character that is "lawful" ( if said alignment is LE and the DM bans evil characters) |
| Sarella Starshine04-10-05, 08:42 PM | the problem i see with alignments is not the fact that they are there, but people wanting to justify evil stuff when they are good by claiming all sorts of wacked out motivational reasons. and the major of the problems of talking about alignments is that it comes down to having people do a strict interpetation vs people with a loose interpetation of them. while you shouldn't have to have your alignment dictate your actions, you should also consider your alignment when chosing which actions to do. a 'good' person is not someone that does some 'good' actions and some 'evil' actions but since his intent is good, they are cosidered good actions, a 'good' person is someone who does 'good' actions and realizes that some actions are 'evil' and should not be done by someone who is considered 'good', no matter what his intent is. yes, a 'good' person may slip and do an 'evil' action, but that's part of being human. the 'good' person should see his slip as a 'bad' thing and tells him/herself that he/she won't do that again. another idea that goes along with the alignment issue, is the paladin catch-22 (aka damed if they do, damed if they don't). a good DM will never ever put the paladin in thier party in this situation. i don't find it to be 'good roleplaying', as it seems to be insulting the paladin. |
| epifreak04-11-05, 12:25 AM | Just to point out, evil characters are perfectly capable of great good. I am currently playing a 13th lvl. rougue (soon to be 1st lvl assassin), who is NE (tends a tad more towards law than chaos, but not enough to throw her over to LE). Anyway, I am currently traveling with a party full of :censored: boyscouts, who feel the need to help every old widow cross the street. This annoys my character greatly because their do-goodering is impractical, but more importantly because it has a tendancy to royally **** off extremely powerful people with extremely powerful friends. My character is practical, when it comes to this, almost to a fault. Anyway, why does my character put up with this roving band of reckless endangerment? Simple, the alternative is infinitely worse. The general plot of the campaign, as we know it is that some hugely powerful (and rather 'evil' stereotype) wizard is trying to bond all the planes into one mega-plane, which would be under his control. Since this would be more than a little disruptive to my character, she either wants it stopped, or in on it (I haven't decided which yet, as either is possible). So, she puts up with these people and is accomplishing great good by trying to stop this guy. That she is evil comes in in this: she is without qualm tactically and rather ammoral in general. For examples of tactical ammorality, I have two. 1.) The party had rescued a being of the earth plane who was guarding this wizard's cell. This being had been banished to the chaos plane. My character died there but was successfully resurrected. Later, he agreed to travel with us to protect us as far as he could go (he was bound to the nearby area). We were attacked by a wizard and dragon bandit combo. During the course of events, the dragon (white) threw up a wall of fog so that we were more-or-less inneffectual. The dragon had the elemental grappled, and the wizard was somewhere within the fog. All of the party but the monk were out of the fog, but the monk could have easily abundant stepped his way out of there. Rather than running in and saving the elemental's ass, I suggested we just use their obvious distractedness as an opportunity to slip away. Unfortunately, the party didn't go for that idea; however, things worked out okay in the end, which leads to #2. 2.) After the battle, I quickly looted the corpse, pocketing an amulet I found without the party finding out (love my 19 sleight of hand :D ). Anyway, I hack off the wizards hands, tie him up, and convince the cleric to throw a raise dead on him, so we can interrogate him. My plan was to torture him until he gave us any information he had, then kill him again. This is how an evil character could do good deeds in a party full of good characters without betraying his/her alignment. |
| Particle_Man04-14-05, 12:08 AM | Interesting. I would have allowed 1) to be done by non-evil, non-good characters without having them become evil. Neutrals can abandon those they don't consider to be friends/family, and the elemental doesn't seem to fit friends/family or even "long term adventuring partner". Now 2, with torture, yep that would be evil. And of course distasteful for me as DM to witness in a PC. |