Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Karadur 01-29-06, 10:35 AM	Situation: My true neutral rogue has broken into the home and has stolen a few trinkets from the resident mayor of the city. This mayor is also the person who gave the PCs their current quest. The mayor is lawful good and has been the perfect host and extremely helpful to the PCs. Now I know one evil deed doesn't make someone evil, and this isn't a large alignment break (IMO) but nontheless how many 'evil' deeds would you allow before the PC's alignment changes to neutral evil?
krazykelc 01-29-06, 11:54 AM	this is a rouge one of your character's is playing, not your character, correct? if i'm right, then you should talk to him about the situation and ask him to justify it. if he can't do so reasonably, then a couple more of these evil acts should call for a change in alignment. however, it might be inconvenient to have an evil party member. convincing him to cut out the stealing from allies is probably the best solution.
Karadur 01-29-06, 12:20 PM	I could have been more specific huh? :) Anyhow, he claimed to be 'scouting' and Im pretty sure he thought mayor and or her house is somehow tied to the plot line (which its not). As of now all he has done is breaking and entering, and petty theft. As far as an inconvenience goes, we don't have a pally or a cleric so the evil alignment should be to big an issue, unless he gets worse than theft and minor malicious deeds.
Cymraegmorgan 01-29-06, 01:22 PM	A neutral character does what seems to be a good idea. They see good, evil, law, and chaos as prejudices and dangerous extremes. They advocate the middle way of neutrality as the best, most balanced road in the long run. Neutral is the best alignment you can be because it means you act naturally, without prejudice or compulsion. Sounds like the player is playing the alignment correctly. What is a little B&E, after all, when you are helping save a town? Remember, TN does not mean "Good Lite"(all the morals, half the calories), it means truly neutral, a little bit good, alittle bit evil, a little bit chaotic, a little bit lawful.
Karadur 01-29-06, 01:31 PM	I didn't say he was playing the alignment wrong, in fact i said it was ok. But if he consistently does evil things then he will become 'evil.' Its like the taint of the darkside. My question is how many evil acts would you allow before making the actual shift from neutral to NE?
HappyDragon 01-29-06, 02:10 PM	It would depend on if you consider thievery 'Evil' or not. My personal opinion is that the act itself is Neutral. Certainly not good, but not quite Evil either. (lawful/chaos are equally inclined to it IMO). Unless you're playing with some rather extreme rules like fully integrating the BoVD or BoED it shouldn't be too much of a problem. Now if the character starts becoming more mailgnent in how and what he steals, then cases could be made for a shift. Just my :twocents: Edit- As for the number of evil acts it takes to make a character evil. There really isn't any hard and fast rule, (that I know of), for something like that. It rather subjective on the DM and group and how closely they play to the RAW. That's about it. How many licks DOES it take to get to the centre of a 'Tootsie Pop'.... :)
Cymraegmorgan 01-29-06, 02:15 PM	I didn't say he was playing the alignment wrong, in fact i said it was ok. But if he consistently does evil things then he will become 'evil.' Its like the taint of the darkside. My question is how many evil acts would you allow before making the actual shift from neutral to NE? But thievery is not inherently evil, merely unlawful. And again, are you taking into account the Balance issue? Do you contemplate an alignment change to NG every time he does an overt good act.
RK)13 01-29-06, 02:28 PM	But thievery is not inherently evil, merely unlawful. I agree with the above, as I don't see the thievery as a good/evil shift but more of a law/chaos shift. as to how many times you alignment shift, well, the question really is do you feel the character is truly out of balance? Does the character do significantly more chaotic/good/evil/lawful things than lawful/evil/good/chaotic things? Characters will always have tendancies toward one (or more), but if the behavior becomes dominated by one of the other alignments, then it is time to talk about a shift.
nastynate 01-29-06, 03:08 PM	All you have to do is ask yourself, what is this PC like most of the time, and how severe are his evil actions vs. his good actions? For the first part you need to determine the general tendencies of the character. A character's alignment is defined by his actions, so if he's good most of the time he probably has a good alignment. A good person will none-the-less sometimes have lapses in judgement. He might slay an evil villain even after the fiend tried to surrender, but given that this villain killed two other party members...well perhaps he wasn't thinking clearly. In your player's case, he should be morally ambiguous most of the time, neither definatively evil or good actions should happen with frequency. For the second part you have to take into consideration the magnitude of his actions. If he is a nice guy who usually spends his time helping folks, but every now and again (when he's bored) he decides to ruthlessly murder orphans just for kicks, well that's a different story. Even though this character doesn't commit evil acts often, his remorseless serial killing is a pretty strong indication of his over-all alignment. So in the case of the neutral PC, are his evil actions particularly heinous, or just selfish. As a DM take the time to weigh both of these factors, and make a determination. If you think an alignment change is in order, tell the player what you think, and why. If they agree, you jointly make the change; if the player disagrees, warn him of an impending change, should he not take further precautions to prevent it. In either case (voluntary or involuntary alignment change) be careful not to encourage an extreme shift in the process. If the player's alignment shifts to evil, they often use it as an excuse to go off the deep end; it's the old, well since I'm evil now, I'm gonna act like it :devil: mentality. Remind the player the alignment change was made only to reflect the character as he has already been played; there is no reason for him to act any differently than he has all along. It was his previous alignment that didn't synch up with his character; the new alignment does. :D
Lord Ian Stark 01-29-06, 03:22 PM	I agree here. So far the Rogue has not done anything Evil so why would he go evil in the first place? Theft is wrong (by the majority) and unlawful. All things that are wrong and unlawful are NOT evil. Ex. If I was in the Military and Mooned my commanding officer, it would be wrong and unlawful (Uniform Code of Military Justice). Is it evil to do that? No. Funny, but not evil. Try not to look into the alignments too much by worrying about shifting characters from good to evil and chatoic to lawful. Some DM's change peeps alignments on a daily basis. IMO this is BS. Your alignment is your soul. The majority of people go through there whole life the same alignment that they grew into during thier childhood. Life changing situations and epiphanies can change the alignment but this doesn't happen as often as you may think.
Karadur 01-29-06, 04:39 PM	Thanks for the responses. While I disagree that thieving isn't evil(you could make a case for stealing for survival) I already said that it wasn't as evil as say the orphan killing example. And for what its worth the PC agrees that its an 'evilish' act. My question wasn't how long before this particular character should be shifted (if at all), the question was more of a general 'how do you handle' PCs who are consistently doing things agaisnt their alignment. Side note, he now has killed a town citizen while in the act of covering up his thievery. Again this wasn't completely evil because the halfing (and his buddies) were being agressive towards him, but he immediatly resorted to violence instead of seeking other solutions.
Lord Ian Stark 01-29-06, 05:12 PM	Ok so in your world stealing is Diet Coke Evil. Ok no problem. Now that he has killed someone to cover up his tracks he is getting into real evil IMO. I'm not sure but did you made the halfling an encounter or just a halfling passing by? D&D characters are so oriented to just fighting and killing things that sometimes they don't know what's a fight and what's a bystander. How did the Halfling approach him and act? Did the rogue say he "has to kill this guy to shut him up" or was it the halfling was attacking him? Was it a life or death battle that the rogue had to defend himself by using lethal force instead of non-lethal? These things way in the balance of the action. If he just straight up killed the halfling to cover his tracks then he is borderline TN and Evil IMO. There is no written rule to how many evils will change an alignment and the idea that if I do one evil and one good it will even out is crap. The alignment system is very "assumed" so it's all up to how you want to run it. I would just have the town militia or guard arrest his arse and imprison him for murder.
Karadur 01-30-06, 09:52 AM	Okay, even though its not overly relevant heres the story. After making it out of the mayors estate with a few trinkets, 4000cp, and a darkwood shield Val(the Elven rogue in question) needed a place to stash his stuff. He buried the shiled but didn't want to bury his backpack with the copper in it. He then contradicts himself by deciding to bury the copper in the graveyard (opposite side of town.) BUT he wan'ts to make sure its a 'safe' place so he wants to ask around about it. The only place open at this time is the inn/tavern. I tell him about the various patronage but he decides to talk to the group of 4 halflings. His questions to them are basically, "Has anyone been robbing the graveyard" (remember the town is having a theft problem before the PCs arrive), "where is the graveyard", "Does anybody patrol it". The fun part about this rogue is that he min/maxed a little with his abilities, but for some reason he put a 9 in CHA. I could have done lots of things with the halflings but I wen the sterotypical route. Val walked outside, accross the street to the smithy, decided he was now going to put the gold up in his room (he was suspicous of the halflings) and turned around. The halflings were already in the shadow of the inn and jumped him. The leader said just give us the back pack (which is bulging and looks very heavy) and your money and we won't hurt ya. At this point only one of them had a weapon out (small dagger) and they partially surrounded him. Val tried to toss the backpack ontop the building (for some reason) but rolled horribly on his STR check. One halfling ran to pick up the pack, and he ran after them (taking 3 AOO) and backstabbed him for 9 dmg. with his rapier more than enough to kill a commoner. The others paniced and fled. The best part? he went to bed leaving the body outside the tavern.
Cymraegmorgan 01-30-06, 10:26 AM	Again this wasn't completely evil because the halfing (and his buddies) were being agressive towards him, but he immediatly resorted to violence instead of seeking other solutions. The halflings were already in the shadow of the inn and jumped him. When did self defense become evil?
nastynate 01-30-06, 12:05 PM	My question wasn't how long before this particular character should be shifted (if at all), the question was more of a general 'how do you handle' PCs who are consistently doing things agaisnt their alignment. The thing is the PC shouldn't be playing his character based on his alignment. He should develop a personality, and a pattern of behavior either during character generation or (if not done so ahead of time) during the course of playing. His alignment should be a reflection of his behavior, not the basis of his personality. If his behavior isn't reflected by his alignment, then it was either a poor choice from the beginning, or his character has changed during the course of play. Either way just adjust the alignment to a more appropriate one, utilizing the guidelines I suggested earlier. On an unrelated note, I think stealing is indeed evil. You are taking things that belong to others, without earning them, or asking for them, and without regard for the hardship you may be causing their previous possessor. I suspect the mayor will raise taxes to replenish his coffers, don't you? What if he was going to use the money for something wothwhile, like repairing cobblestone roads that were in disrepair? The consequences of theft are never beneficial to the person from whom you are stealing. That is an act of willingly harmful behavior, not something a good person would do. My parents taught me that when I was five, when they caught me stealing candy. If you thought you could aquire the merchandise based upon your own merits, you wouldn't have to steal it. That's why we all work for a living and don't rob banks. Theft is Illegal because it's immoral. Most basic and universal laws have been implimented to create an evironment that helps people peacefully coexist together. Laws pertaining to theft, violence, and infidelity are supposed to protect the innocent from the actions of the indifferent, evil and selfish. Now I'm not suggesting that all laws have a basis is promoting good behavior, some are simple measures of control, and efficiency, that perpetuate order and control in general. Some are cleverly diguised methods of oppression. Some are even blatently unfair (like the old segregation laws). But many are based upon good intentions, and preventing those with sinister intentions from having the freedom to kill, harm or steal from others without punishment. There are always loopholes within the law, because order is not inherently a good thing. Again the segregation laws were certainly orderly, but not moral. There are circumstances where the law favors evil men, and oppresses the virtuous. There are times when you could be morally justified in refusing to adhere to them, like Robin Hood, but in most cases, the law favors good behavior, and discourages evil behavior; at least in our society.
BigJMoney 01-30-06, 12:50 PM	I think you have had two answers from Nate that absolutely address your situation here: #1) It's okay if you think stealing can be considered evil, particularly in certain situations. #2) The point isn't to tally up good/evil/lawful/chaotic actions on the part of your player and flip-flip them around after they fulfill a perceived ratio (there is the potential they could always go back and forth!), but to pay attention to the characters' attitudes overall, and set the alignment to reflect it. If you ask me, regardless of what some of the D&D source says, the point of having a neutral alignment is to have a 'fence' that characters can sit upon if they know they do not really wish their characters' to be particularly good, evil, chaotic or lawful. If you're wondering whether committing good and evil acts should 'steer' the character into a new zone of alignment, then you might as well be consistent and begin to pay attention to all the morally ambiguous, or 'neutral' acts your good players are committing, because if they don't watch out, they're gonna' become neutral! Do you see how ridiculous this is? It's obvious the primary motivation for your PC here was greed. I wouldn't question you as a DM for seeing that as evil. However, unless one of thse two things happen, I wouldn't change the the alignment: 1) A talk with the player discovers that the player truly wishes to play an evil character, or 2) The character continues to behave according to greed, without ever a measure of restraint or counter-balancing good behavior. Again, I don't really care if the player commits 1,000 evil acts. As long as they also consistently commit acts of benevolence, they are not evil to the core, and thus are neutral. Remember that this is a fantasy game. If neutral characters seem obnoxious or displeasing to you, it's because they probably would in real life, too. Most people are good; not neutral. Yet, somehow in D&D, most characters end up neutral. It makes sense, psychologically. It allows us to exist in a fantasy environment, where we can commit actions that would otherwise make us feel terrible about ourselves. Some people go all the way and wish to play evil characters, but I think most don't. I know a lot of people will disagree with me here, stating that D&D has a strict definition for what the 'neutral' alignment means. However, I'm just trying to respond empathetically here, because I know how you feel as a DM, and I don't believe you're so different than me. =$= Big J Money =$=
Mirage_1 01-30-06, 01:01 PM	When did self defense become evil? I'll second this question. He killed one of the people who tried to mug him....not in an attempt to cover up the robbery. Must admit that it sounds like you are looking for an excuse to turn him evil.
Chimera245 01-30-06, 02:04 PM	Have you ever Played the Star Wars d20 RPG? There are rules in it for exactly when a character is "tainted" or "dark" from doing evil acts, and going down the path of the dark side. If you mess with it a bit it would work well with the Alignments of D&D. Whenever a character does an evil act, they gain a Dark Side Point. When your DSP's equal half your Wisdom score, you are "tainted" which I would consider "not good" (but not necessarily evil yet). When your DSP's equal your whole Wisdom score, you are "Dark" (Evil). You could keep track of how many "Good points" and "chaos points", etc. a character has, and whenever they are half the character's wisdom, they shift away from the opposite alignment toward Neutral. When the points are equal to the character's wisdom, they shift to the corresponding alignment. Whenever a character performs a good act, they get a Good Point (Or lose an Evil Point if they have any) and vice-versa. And every character would start the game with a number of Alignment points required to be whatever alignment they are. Or it might be simpler to have two values, good/evil and Law/chaos, where good is positive, and evil is negative, and good acts are +1 "moral point" and evil acts are -1. Same with Law/chaos and "Ethic points" And you wouldn't need to explain anything to your players, or have them make a space on their character sheets for the new Points, if you didn't want to, since it's the DM's job to keep track and decide when a player's alignment shifts anyway.
Lord Ian Stark 01-30-06, 02:20 PM	The thing is the PC shouldn't be playing his character based on his alignment. He should develop a personality, and a pattern of behavior either during character generation or (if not done so ahead of time) during the course of playing. His alignment should be a reflection of his behavior, not the basis of his personality. I disagree here to a point. The character has an alignment on his sheet because that's how he lived his life all the years prior to the player using the character. Now the player is basically "taking over" the character and playing him according to how he is. Not will be, but is. The player of the Rogue did not start playing with this character when he was born. He started playing him as a young adult (assumingly) who is past puberty and well into the alignment he's going to be. If the character doesn't have an alignment until after the player starts playing him then why is there an alignment on his character sheet? Why is it RAW that you have an alignment on the sheet during character creation? An alignment is not something that's wishy washy and on the whim of how a player plays a character after every decision made. If you play it like that, then you need to come up with some house rule like Neverwinter Nights (PC Game) has where your alignment is based on a scale of 0 (Chaotic Evil) to 100 (Lawful Good). Then every action he does adds or subtracts points depending on what he does. Is it tedius and kinda sound rediculous? Yes, but that's how you want to play it. If the character is not playing according to his alignment you need to take him aside and explain to him how he's not. Then decide together what alignment he's going to play. My question is how many evil acts would you allow before making the actual shift from neutral to NE? You ask this question as if we can give you a page in the PH or DMG that says this. It doesn't exist. It's up to the DM to tell the player we need to discuss your characters' alignment. If you don't want to play a certain way (the alignment on the sheet) then you need to find an alignment that matches his playstyle as he cares not how his character would act but only how the player himself wants to act. By the way, I think he may need to make his character CN instead of TN. Okay, even though its not overly relevant heres the story... Well now I say change this characters alignment to TS (True Stupid ;) ) He went into a tavern in the middle of the night (where shady characters hang) and basically asked if it was ok to hide something in the graveyard from thieves. He was alone approaching a group like that asking stupid questions, then kills a guy and leaves his body for authorities to see and witnesses to point out who the halfling last spoke with. :uh-huh: Where was the rest of the party when this guy was making an arse of himself?
Lord Ian Stark 01-30-06, 02:29 PM	Again, I don't really care if the player commits 1,000 evil acts. As long as they also consistently commit acts of benevolence, they are not evil to the core, and thus are neutral. We all have our opinions but I think this one is , well lets just say, has a huge loophole. Why would someone who does so many evil acts do any good ones? The player will think, "Oh crap I just killed an innocent... ah I'll just stop by the church and throw a few coins in the collection basket and be back at neutral." :rolleyes: This kind of thinking is rediculous IMO. Noone thinks like that unless they are mentaly unstable. Unfortunately the D&D rules didn't consider characters will mental problems such as bipolar and schizophrenia so the only times you see "dimented" characters in modules they are a form of evil. (I'm not making fun of any mental disorders as my family has enough of them for me to truely understand what they are and how serious they can be.)
nastynate 01-30-06, 05:12 PM	Originally Posted by nastynate The thing is the PC shouldn't be playing his character based on his alignment. He should develop a personality, and a pattern of behavior either during character generation or (if not done so ahead of time) during the course of playing. His alignment should be a reflection of his behavior, not the basis of his personality. I disagree here to a point. The character has an alignment on his sheet because that's how he lived his life all the years prior to the player using the character. Now the player is basically "taking over" the character and playing him according to how he is. Not will be, but is. You kind of missed my point, but I guess I wasn't really specific enough to blame you. I only added the "during the course of playing" clause because it seems like many people just write down the alignment that seems cool when they make their character, rather than actually thinking about how they intend to play him. His alignment should be a reflection of his behavior, and swings in alignment shouldn't happen more than once or twice in a person's lifetime (like Darth Vader). However sometimes the initial alignment selection never reflected the character at all...in this case just change it and move on. It's a mulligan. The player should be free to play his character as he wants to, so long as he is consistant, and not disruptive. If he picked an alignment that never really synched up, it doesn't mean he's playing his character incorrectly; it just means he made a poor alignment selection when generating his character. How the character acted up until the player started role-playing him doesn't really matter. The player isn't "taking over," because the character didn't exist at all until the player made him. The character should act in whatever way the player wants (that's the player's job), and if he wrote down chaotic good on his sheet, and then during the course of play realizes that he should have slected chaotic neutral, it's not the end of the world. The only thing that matters is that the player dictates his character's actions, and his alignment should be a suitable match. I suspect this happens much more often with inexperienced players, or with those who don't put much thought into background and history. None-the-less it does happen, and a minor tweak to the alignment written on the character sheet doesn't change anything about the character. The player is not breaking the rules, playing him incorrectly, or making some dramatic life altering philosophical shift; the intial alignment selected was just not a good match for what the character already is.
kraegor 01-30-06, 08:14 PM	These are the key things to remember: Good is a downhill spiral. A truly good character that commits an evil act, will usually feel guilt, shame, and a loss of self. This can start into a downward spiral trend that corrupts his alignment very quickly. A good character can atone for his actions, but will always be wary and scared of making the same mistake he did. Murdering someone doesn't make you evil, its an evil act, but you only become evil if you start to feel no remorse or guilt for your actions. Evil is an upward climb. If you are evil and want to turn your life around, you constantly have to struggle and fight against your innate evil urges. Someone who is evil starts feeling guilt and remorse for his current and previous actions when they start the climb, and it is a struggle within them. Evil people have done way to much to simply atone for, and must strive to balance thier evil acts with future acts of good. For some characters this can create a see-saw effect of how they feel. Some even take years, if not a lifetime, striving to undo what they have done, righting all the wrongs of thier past, or making up for it in other ways. Nothing can ever just make you "suddenly" loose your alignment unless you actually go insane. Insanity is the loss of the notion of good and evil, and is more likely a Chaotic Nuetral or True Nuetral alignment. Even though thier actions seem evil, they really have no remorse and no guilt because they do not see it as evil. They are unable to tell. Hopefully this helps. (Exact post done on another alignment thread)
Lord Ian Stark 01-30-06, 08:33 PM	I suspect this happens much more often with inexperienced players, or with those who don't put much thought into background and history. None-the-less it does happen, and a minor tweak to the alignment written on the character sheet doesn't change anything about the character. The player is not breaking the rules, playing him incorrectly, or making some dramatic life altering philosophical shift; the intial alignment selected was just not a good match for what the character already is. I agree with what you have said. In this case with the Rogue it's a simple change. However, classes like the Paladin, Monk, Barbarian, Bard, Cleric, and Druid have set restrictions on certain alignments and players will want to play them for thier abilities but not adhere to there respective required alignment. With those characters, you can't just change to whatever the player wants to play without a possible entire restructure of his character class or classes.