Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Zinegata 01-29-06, 09:13 PM	Diclaimer: This is a discussion on alignment based on Rules As Written. If you're a DM who runs alignment in a different fashion, it's fine. It's not inferior or bad, it is merely different from the RAW interpretation. Also, I hope that people will generally remain civil in this discussion. Anyone who visits the Wizards boards regularly would know that alignment shifting is one of the most hotly debated issues in the D&D community. When does a character's alignment shift from one point to another? when does Good become Evil? When does Evil become Good? Each DM has its own unique way of handling this issue, but what does the RaW have to say about it? First of all, alignment shifting is not the consequence of a single action alone. The RaW states that alignment is the general moral outlook of a person. A Good person doesn't have to act Good 100% of the time - a Good person merely has to act Good the majority of the time. A person does not become evil if he performs only one evil act for every hundred good acts. He/She becomes evil if he/she performs a hundred evil acts for every good act. So why do a lot of DMs enforce alignment changes for just one act? I believe it is rooted in a slightly mistaken interpretation of the Paladin class. A Paladin can lose his/her powers if he/she willfully commits an evil act. Unfortunately, many have also come to interpret this as a Lawful Good character losing his/her alignment as the result of a single evil or chaotic act. However, as per RAW, this is a wrong interpretation. A Paladin can willfully commit an evil act, lose his/her powers, yet remain with the Lawful Good alignment. Note that in outlining the conditions for a Paladin losing his/her powers, willfully committing an evil act and ceasing to be Lawful Good are two seperate conditions. A Paladin can lose his/her powers if he/she commits an evil act OR if he/she ceases to be Lawful Good. The written rules would not have seperated these two conditions if they were one and the same. (Incidentally, since there is no clause stating that a Paladin loses his/her powers by willfully committing a chaotic act, it implies that a Paladin should prioritize Good over the Law. Breaking or bending the law sometimes for the sake of Good is acceptable - so long as it does not become the majority of one's actions. This is another hotly debated issue that the RaW actually provides a simple answer to!) However, the RaW interpretation does have a significant weakness (which is probably a reason why the "shift alignment based on one act" method is so appealing). It is very difficult to determine [i]when[i] a character's alignment has changed - and it becomes a subjective rather than objective matter. Indeed, unless the players record and classify every action of the character, it would be impossible to objectively calculate what one's "general" moral outlook really is (and even then, the rules are silent on how to "calculate" one's alignment even if such data is available). Thus, again, the best way to resolve this is through DM-player communication. The DM should inform the player of patterns of behaviour he is noticing (i.e. "You've been breaking the law an awful lot lately for a Lawful character"), and the player should recognize if the character is already wearing the wrong alignment ("Hey, I just realized my Wizard is really Chaotic!"). Really, in most cases, there's very little in-game or role-playing consequences to an alignment shift anyway, so people shouldn't fuss over it when it happens. (As an example, I had a Wizard play in two campaigns - in one, she was Lawful Evil and in another, she was Lawful Good. Yet I played her almost exactly the same way with no consequence. The only major change is that her Lawful Evil version showed delight whenever she could kill something, while the Lawful Good version showed delight whenever she could help someone) So, in the sum, I hope this might help clear some alignment shifting misconceptions as per RAW. Any thoughts? (and surely there are many! >_>)
totoro 01-29-06, 09:34 PM	<snip> First of all, alignment shifting is not the consequence of a single action alone. The RaW states that alignment is the general moral outlook of a person. A Good person doesn't have to act Good 100% of the time - a Good person merely has to act Good the majority of the time. A person does not become evil if he performs only one evil act for every hundred good acts. He/She becomes evil if he/she performs a hundred evil acts for every good act. So why do a lot of DMs enforce alignment changes for just one act? I believe it is rooted in a slightly mistaken interpretation of the Paladin class. A Paladin can lose his/her powers if he/she willfully commits an evil act. Unfortunately, many have also come to interpret this as a Lawful Good character losing his/her alignment as the result of a single evil or chaotic act. However, as per RAW, this is a wrong interpretation. A Paladin can willfully commit an evil act, lose his/her powers, yet remain with the Lawful Good alignment. <snip> I disagree. The gradual shift in alignment per RAW is because rapid shifting is bad roleplay. It is a suggestion, not a rule. If you do evil even once then you might shift over to evil. I think that is perfectly in keeping with the RAW, and I'll wager the WotC folks agree that only a single torture/sacrifice of an innocent baby to the Elder Gods is enough to put you well over the line into the province of evil. Even if you did good deeds the day before. The RAW never said you add up the number of good deeds and the number of evil deeds and you are good if you did 2/3 or more good, evil if you did 2/3 or more evil, and neutral otherwise. What they hinted at was don't go nuts and jump between evil and good all the time because the change should be gradual. That's a suggestion for the players (as they play their characters) and the DM (as NPCs evolve). I would find it repugnant if a good person could do evil deeds and not register as evil with a detect evil. I don't think anything in the RAW requires that I make that leap.
Millennium 01-29-06, 10:07 PM	I'm going to have to agree with both of the above posts, in their own ways. Under normal circumstances, alignment shift should be the result of a pattern of behavior, rather than a single act. Acts of Good or Evil do not "make" you Good or Evil; they reflect what's going on in your head. If you look at it that way, then changing the Alignment entry on a character sheet is little more than correcting a mistake: the character has changed to the point where the sheet's listing is no longer accurate. I agree with the original post's theory that most of this probably comes from a mistaken interpretation of the paladin class. The way I explain it to my players, listing the paladin as losing his abilities if he commits an Evil act is actually redundant: "do no Evil" is part of the paladin's code, and so committing an Evil act is really no different from other gross violations of that code. Most characters are not expected to be 100% consistent, but If I expect that a player's alignment is shifting, I try not to force a change immediately unless the player starts being impressively blatant about it. Instead, I take the character aside out-of-session and talk with them about it. I also offer to DM a short "introspective one-shot": a sort of mindscape where the player takes the role of the person the player wants to be, while I take the role of the person's recent behavior, and we discuss what's going on. The effect is kind of like in cartoons where you have the little angel and devil sitting on a person's shoulders arguing over what he should do next. Over the course of the one-shot, we decide what to do about the character's alignment: whether it should stay as it is or whether to change it before the next session. The result of this is that ideally, the change is never truly forced: I talk it over with the player, and they get a fair chance to defend their actions or even point out things I've missed. It can get a little trippy and philosophical at times, but the idea is to keep the players from feeling like they're being railroaded.
Milandros 01-29-06, 10:11 PM	I basically agree, with a couple of caveats: Yes, a single evil act no more totally corrupts a good character than a single good act redeems an evil one - but it depends on the act. The RAW does not define this in detail, however. As an example from film - Anakin Skywalker does not become evil merely from killing Mace Windu, an act mostly foolish though evil. Apprenticing himself to the Sith possibly loses him his good alignment though, as it's a very serious step, but one that he could redeem quite quickly by realising what an idiot he's being. The act that makes him evil is the slaughter of the Jedi children at the temple. Acting hastily in hatred and anger might lose a paladin his powers but not change his alignment, but truly vile acts require truly exhaulted acts of redemption. The RAW do not make the direct connection Law(alignment) = Law(law of the social group). Not abiding by the Caramel Import Regulations Act of 1934, Subsection 4, Paragraph 14, sub-sub-paragaraph (iia) does not make someone chaotic. Law equates to order and structure rather than codified social conventions. While human laws are by their nature somewhat Lawful, the opposite is not necessarily true (grass is green, anything green is not necessarily grass). To quote the SRD: "A lawful neutral character acts as law, tradition, or a personal code directs her. Order and organization are paramount to her. She may believe in personal order and live by a code or standard, or she may believe in order for all and favor a strong, organized government."
Zinegata 01-30-06, 12:38 AM	totoro-> I disagree. The gradual shift in alignment per RAW is because rapid shifting is bad roleplay. It is a suggestion, not a rule. RAW doesn't actually say anything about what is good or bad roleplaying. All it says is that alignment is the general moral outlook of a character. It also stresses that alignment is not a straightjacket. It says nothing about what is good or bad roleplaying. And as I have stressed in the diclaimer, it's okay if you handle alignment in a way other than RAW. It's just different, but it's neither good nor bad. If you do evil even once then you might shift over to evil. I think that is perfectly in keeping with the RAW, and I'll wager the WotC folks agree that only a single torture/sacrifice of an innocent baby to the Elder Gods is enough to put you well over the line into the province of evil. Even if you did good deeds the day before. Precisely why I mentioned that RAW is silent on how the calculations are done. How you determine what is the "general" outlook of a character is not an exact science. What I disagree is that doing evil once will result in an alignment change. Somebody who tortures or sacrifices an infant is not likely to have been Good in the first place. It does not make sense if someone was so good and kind the day before, and then turns around the next day and commits such a heinous act. Most likely, the character was never good in the first place (only feigning to be good), or something extraordinary occured (Helm of Opposite Alignment, Amnesia, Mind Control, etc), which throws the alignment system out of whack. Another poster has pointed out the excellent example of Anakin Skywalker's fall to the Dark Side: He did not really fall because of one evil act. Rather, he fell because of a collective series of actions. He arguably became, at best, only Neutral by the end of Episode 2 due to his change in behaviour (his arrogance, his deception, and his massacre of the Sand People). In Episode 3, with further acts of evil under his belt (the slaughter of the younglings, betrayal of the Jedi Order, etc), it was clear that he ahd become evil. He was no longer merely committing evil on occassion. He was committing evil regularly and by choice. The RAW never said you add up the number of good deeds and the number of evil deeds and you are good if you did 2/3 or more good, evil if you did 2/3 or more evil, and neutral otherwise. What they hinted at was don't go nuts and jump between evil and good all the time because the change should be gradual. That's a suggestion for the players (as they play their characters) and the DM (as NPCs evolve). Very true. Which is why I said that while the RAW explicitly states that alignment is an indication of a character's general moral outlook (and by implication determines the majority of the character's actions), I was quick to point out that there is no formula in the book. However, in cases of clear majority, I think it should be quite easy to determine what a character's proper alignment is. My example of 1 evil act not being enough to overturn 100 good acts was stated under the implicit assumption that the weight of all of these acts are equal. Obviously, in this case, the person is Good, in spite of having committed one evil act. I would find it repugnant if a good person could do evil deeds and not register as evil with a detect evil. I don't think anything in the RAW requires that I make that leap. And it would be equally repugnant if a character who committed one evil act is condemned forever even though the vast majority of the character's actions and his moral outlook remains Good. Millenium-> Great method for sorting out alignment disputes! =D Milandros-> I think that it's a bit harder to pin down exactly when Anakin finally turned evil though... arguably, it's when he pledged himself to Palpatine and committed to doing evil for him, but the slaughter of the younglings was the first explicitly evil act he committed. As I mentioned in my original post, it's a bit harder to pin down using the RAW interpretation. Great example nonetheless. Also, your elaboration of the Lawful side of alignment is correct. When I refer to "Law" in my original post it refers to law, tradition, or a personal code. What I was trying to say is that in case a Paladin must choose between the Law (using your expanded definition) or Good, and there are no choices in between, then the Paladin ought to pick the Good route. A Paladin is stripped of powers if he/she willingly commits an Evil act, but is not stripped if he/she willingly commits a Chaotic act. Therefore, willingly committing a chaotic act for the sake of Good (i.e. rescuing an innocent man from execution) is better than willingly committing an evil act for the sake of Law (i.e. executing an innocent man to protect the state).
Sir Todd 01-30-06, 02:05 AM	Anakin killed every man, woman, and <i>child</i> in the sand people village. And he did it out of revenge. This is clearly his first truely evil act. Clearly the children were inocents. And he slaughtered them. This was the point he fell away from good and turned to neutral. In my opinion willingly doing an act two alignment steps away from yours is the same as turning your back on your current alignment willingly. So one evil act committed of free will and intention, does remove your alignment from good. You wouldn't turn evil however till you displayed a pattern for evil actions.
Zinegata 01-30-06, 06:04 PM	Anakin killed every man, woman, and <i>child</i> in the sand people village. And he did it out of revenge. This is clearly his first truely evil act. Clearly the children were inocents. And he slaughtered them. This was the point he fell away from good and turned to neutral. In my opinion willingly doing an act two alignment steps away from yours is the same as turning your back on your current alignment willingly. So one evil act committed of free will and intention, does remove your alignment from good. You wouldn't turn evil however till you displayed a pattern for evil actions. Slaughtering the Sand People was indeed evil... but note there is a mitigating circumstance: His mother had just died because of those Sand People. Was it a willingly evil act, or simply an act of rage? Again, I stress the real difficulty in alignment shifting: Determining exactly when exceptions become the general behaviour.
Kadasbrass 01-30-06, 08:01 PM	Most times, doing a single evil act shouldn't be enough to turn someone evil. However it does leave a stain or sorts on the person’s moral fiber, which may lead to a repeat of the event. If doing it once was okay, then maybe a few more should be as well. This line of though then leads to the total degrading of the persons foundation of right and wrong as well as good and evil. Sometimes committing a single evil act is enough to remind people why they must constantly work towards maintaining a good alignment (the type of reflect that comes from seeking self atonement or from reflecting/meditating after their action). Sometimes the reason for committing a evil act also plays a part on its relationship with a person’s alignment. “I’m killing goblin children because their goblins (or evil)” has a totally different impact as opposed to “I'm killing the goblin children to put them out of their misery now so that they don’t grow up misguided, kill other innocent people, and then be killed for committing such foul such crimes.” As for Anakin slaughtering the Sandpeople. The action was evil, no questions about it. His reason for doing so was also out of bounds for lawful or good. Such an event could drive a person towards evil or good. It could stand as a precedence that would lead towards repeats of evil actions. Or it could be something atoned for that constantly reminds Anakin on why he must be good, to reframe from repeating it again. Oh course we saw what happens afterwards... However, there are some acts that are evil (and big) enough to shift a person's alignment in one event. Normally these events involve a short sequence of decisions. A person can choose someone along the line that what they were doing was wrong and stop it. Even then most times the alignment should shift to neutral instead of evil if it was being done so for a greater good. But such events are very rare.
kraegor 01-30-06, 08:12 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.
Zinegata 01-30-06, 08:14 PM	Most times, doing a single evil act shouldn't be enough to turn someone evil. However it does leave a stain or sorts on the person’s moral fiber, which may lead to a repeat of the event. If doing it once was okay, then maybe a few more should be as well. This line of though then leads to the total degrading of the persons foundation of right and wrong as well as good and evil. ... However, there are some acts that are evil (and big) enough to shift a person's alignment in one event. Normally these events involve a short sequence of decisions. A person can choose someone along the line that what they were doing was wrong and stop it. Even then most times the alignment should shift to neutral instead of evil if it was being done so for a greater good. But such events are very rare. Good points. I'm really not sure that "one big event" may be enough to facilitate a shift, however. I believe your first paragraph is more correct in saying that a major evil action may lead to a character becoming evil - but only because there was a series of follow-up actions that were evil as well. A Good character (who remained Good) who did a major evil act would probably spend much time regretting and repenting. Or, he could realize Good is not all that he thought it was and adopted a more Neutral stance. Or, most extreme of all, he could go the Anakin Skywalker route, where one evil act seems to have encouraged another, until there was no turning back. The problem with this system, admittedly, is that it's hard to determine when there was finally "no turning back". My suggestion is that the DM and player talk it over and come to an agreement.
Chimera245 01-30-06, 08:27 PM	To continue with the Star Wars line of thinking, The Star Wars d20 RPG has rules for evil acts and turning to the dark side, and in another post in another thread that I can't seem to find at the moment, I suggested a way to use it to track alignment shifts. The original post had something to do with a rogue breaking into the Mayor's house and stealing some stuff, But I can't find the thread at the moment.
Kadasbrass 01-30-06, 10:25 PM	Good points. I'm really not sure that "one big event" may be enough to facilitate a shift, however. I believe your first paragraph is more correct in saying that a major evil action may lead to a character becoming evil - but only because there was a series of follow-up actions that were evil as well. A Good character (who remained Good) who did a major evil act would probably spend much time regretting and repenting. Or, he could realize Good is not all that he thought it was and adopted a more Neutral stance. Or, most extreme of all, he could go the Anakin Skywalker route, where one evil act seems to have encouraged another, until there was no turning back. The problem with this system, admittedly, is that it's hard to determine when there was finally "no turning back". My suggestion is that the DM and player talk it over and come to an agreement. When I refer to one major event, it normally something that has to have a ton of important small events in to cause an shift, and even then its only enough to move alignment one step at the moment. Such events are a very rare case however. I'll agree with you that almost all big events are merely a single step in the downward fall, and normally the first one as well. The big events that could change an alignment in one event, are normally too big of a step for a person to take all at once. So coming up with an example of someone falling at this moment are difficult to find. The closest example I can find at this moment is from Fullmetal Alchemist, during the Lab 5 events. When Ed has the choice to create the Philosopher's Stone or not. To do so would be a huge alignment shift. But he understands that and chooses not to continue on, even at the cost of his (and his brother's) life.
pres_man 01-30-06, 10:57 PM	Zinegata, I find it interesting that you say ... First of all, alignment shifting is not the consequence of a single action alone. Yet then you say ... Somebody who tortures or sacrifices an infant is not likely to have been Good in the first place. It does not make sense if someone was so good and kind the day before, and then turns around the next day and commits such a heinous act. Most likely, the character was never good in the first place (only feigning to be good), Where as I understand your point, how would the two look differently to the player if you said you were "adjusting" their alignment because this one act showed they didn't have their correct one on there in the first place versus saying that the act was so heinous that it caused an alignment shift? How would a player tell the difference? You could try to explain it to them, but wouldn't that just come across as rationalizing?
allencon 01-30-06, 10:58 PM	Much of what has been said is true thus far. I have found one element of alignment that is lacking would be that of degree. If instead of a two dimensional depiction of alignement, one uses degree to which one is good, netrual, evil, lawful, or chaotic, it would help give more realistic - or at least less cookie cutter, elements of behavior. Now how to do this in terms of "numerical mechanics", quite admittedly I am a bit out my league here. One element of actions that PC's need to understand, are what types of consequences may occur from certain choices. Only in a few extreme examples does one single act chage someone's alignment within the RAW. (EG a CG PC suddenly deciding it's ok to slaughter 20 babies)
Chimera245 01-31-06, 12:36 AM	Found it. "Alignment Shift" under "What's a DM to do?" about halfway down the thread I put forth my two cents on how to use the Star Wars Dark Side Point system to keep track of Alignment shifting.
Zinegata 01-31-06, 01:49 AM	Where as I understand your point, how would the two look differently to the player if you said you were "adjusting" their alignment because this one act showed they didn't have their correct one on there in the first place versus saying that the act was so heinous that it caused an alignment shift? How would a player tell the difference? You could try to explain it to them, but wouldn't that just come across as rationalizing? It can indeed come off as merely rationalizing, but only if the DM made the decision arbitrarily without consulting the player. This is precisely why I mentioned that it is extremely difficult to determine when a character's alignment changes and that the best method to determine this is to talk it over. Rationalization, remember, is finding the reason (rationale) behind the action. With both parties actively cooperating, it is most likely one can find the truth. The player might realize he envisioned the character incorrectly (the character's alignment is really Neutral rather than Good), or the DM may realize that he gave very wrong hints that caused the character to do such an extreme action. Note however, that the above is contingent on having a group that actually wants to play together. More often than not sudden out of alignment actions are the result of players wanting to do it for some reason beyond the game (i.e. depression, want of attention, etc). If that is the case, the RAW can't help you. RAW, after all, defines rules within the games. Your inter-personal relationship with your players is something beyond its scope.