Vampires are undead. From DnD Lore, Necromancy and undead are viewed as evil. Vecna, Strahd, Acererak, all three BBEGs are technically undead and have an evil alignment. Take a look at the wizards of Thay. The lore says they are generally killed on sight due to their ties with necromancy.
Now. Lets also point out there can be exceptions to the rule.
I can't recall them completely but for lore example there is a way to be a good lich according to the elves I believe?
If we want to see BG3 as canon or even lore friendly, Astarion. He refused to feed on the party without consent. For the most part. And then there is Withers a Lich (at face value).
If we go with the DnD Movie there was a Thayan paladin. That's all I'll say as I'm trying not to give spoilers to any of them but there's more nuance.
My point is, you can be a vampire that's not evil. But you got to find a way to justify the consumption of human blood, even with consent this could be an act of barberry without nuance and context. Do they feed off animals? do they feed off convicted felons facing execution? feed in combat on hostiles?
I currently play a Neutral necromancer who's not your atypical necromancer. How I went about it is he was raised in the woods, loves to read books and worships Ogma, had a mastery of elemental magics. then he discovered Necromancy found it fascinating and decided to study it to understand the necrotic energies and its mimicry of life while harming life. Makes for some interesting RP with him being oblivious to social cues and not seeing himself as a necromancer. He just likes to learn new things. Sometimes he inadvertently scares npcs dumping his skeletons out of a bag of holding offering to help, other times he cries when the party drags him away because he just wants to read a book and the store has them in glass cases he cant touch or they drag him out of the library for the next quest. In combat he does his thing and offers a lot of support and debuffs. He is strictly neutral well meaning wizard who is mistaken as a necromancer because he is studying the properties of necrotic energy as opposed to creating a undead army as an evil edgelord McLame overlord.
I agree that exceptions can be made. Provided there's an explanation for it, you can simply brute-force it and just give the vampire, or the undead, their soul back. Like Angel in the Buffyverse. Which, barring acts-of-God, is what I alluded to as a potential double crime against nature - the creation of an undead, and then the undead receiving their soul back in their undead condition.
Astarion is a compelling case. He says he doesn't feed on the party - fine. We don't see him do it. We don't know where he goes at night, so in spite of what we learn about him later, it's still possible he gets people blood whenever he can - just not from the party. After all once his Bite ability becomes available, you can have him use it on acceptable targets in combat, but only when the player allows him to do it. That gets addressed later, and it's interesting the way they frame it. But at the end of the day, he's the stereotypical soulless creature who desires blood and power. He crafts no illusions to cover that fact. I think it's not a question of whether a vampire, spawn or true, can be "Good", but whether they can be tamed. After all, wolves are "Evil" and they can be tamed. I would say that Forgotten Realms' vampires are wolves writ large.
And beyond that, there's the understanding that for your homebrew setting, or a movie, or a video game, you can simply make it up. "Vampires in the rules as written and the lore are Evil - but in our game/movie, they aren't" or "we've added an exception to the rule."
The way I view it, the living are a wellspring of life energy, and vampires must take it from them, whether or not consent is given, and that is simply not desirable for...well, the living. And vampires are an unnatural and spiteful creation to begin with. So when getting down to brass tacks, stake 'em. Kelemvor is calling.
D&D morality is not an absolute--despite what a sizable number of players would argue to the contrary. Since the beginning of the game, we have seen characters who go beyond their racially-defined paradigms of good and evil, and you can generally ignore anyone who says that things "should" be a certain way. Wizards of the Coast certainly ignores those "should" voices and is increasingly excising defined alignments in favor of "suggested" alignments, specifically to make it clear that the DM can make whatever they want out of their own world. After all, D&D is a game about imagination and storytelling--you are free to write whatever story or characters you want.
All you have to do to make a good vampire is think of their primary underlying trait--their bloodlust--and work around that. You want to come up with a character who either can mitigate their bloodlust through other ways or who utilizes their bloodlust for a good end. A number of examples were listed both in your opening post and the subsequent responses, any number of which would be perfectly acceptable justifications for a "good" vampire.
At the risk of sounding redundant, I am going to provide yet another example--listed to give another example from Wizards of the Coast itself. Arvad is a character in Magic: the Gathering who was a knight who swore an oath of service and loyalty prior to becoming a vampire. His knightly morality and oath provide him the motivation he needs to fend off his bloodlust and keep him firmly on the "good" side of the good-evil spectrum.
Hasn't the entire alignment discussion/consensus shifted a bit from being written in stone to being more flexible? Basically it's not really a good alignment but rather a proclivity to do selfless acts, be benevolent, be considerate, or cooperate, whilst evil is more being selfish, uncaring, destructive, or prioritizing personal ambition. Basically do you care about others or only yourself?
Similarly lawful and chaotic is more a world view on the law of the people/society or perhaps the origin of your morality. Either you follow the law of the people or you choose to follow your own conviction.
Neutral morality (as in good-neutral-evil) I find resonates with being apathetic/opportunistic. They operate in a mostly hands-off mentality, don't want to get involved but on occasion find motive to either do acts of good or evil. Neutral conviction (as in lawful-neutral-chaotic) operate mostly under the law of the people until their personal convictions clashes enough with the law that they break it.
And funny you should mention Magic: the Gathering, as a very prominent vampiric figure in that universe is Sorin Markov, who definitely has evil tendencies BUT also recognized that his vampiric brothers and sisters were taking over the world from the human population and they would end up destroying their source of food. To restore some semblance of balance; he created Avacyn, an angel of hope, as a functional defense for humanity on the plane. Avacyn turned the tide of the war between humanity and vampires/darkness back into the humans' favor to the point that evil was the force that was the more oppressed and hunted, driven into sanctuaries of shadows or strongholds of evil. Was Sorin's motive self-preservation? Did he perceive a need to keep evil in check for the good of the plane? In DnD terms was that an act of Good? Evil? Neutral?
I think many who delved into his lore would say he's morally grey, tilting toward evil but ultimately selfish in nature. However he can see beyond his more mundane needs and when his own power is insufficient to combat a problem (like against the reality-eating Eldrazi) he finds others to cooperate with.
This is just to say that evil is not necessarily all destruction, mutilation, horror, and the like. I feel like self-serving is a good adjective to describe evil in DnD. But there definitely also exists pure evil that just want to watch the world burn.
Obviously there is such a thing as a good vampire. But consider it for a moment. Vampires have to drain blood from a still-living body every few days to subsist themselves. Yes, they’re functionally immortal, but even a little longer without blood will drive them into an absolutely agonising hunger that will almost certainly consume their sanity. And speaking of sanity, to become a vampire, you must have the blood drained from your FRIGGIN BODY and functionally die, before being risen once more as a lord of the undead. Oh, and you now have a constant psychological connect to the plane of negative energy, just like all undead do. This would also corrupt your body and soul and drive you to ever more hedonistic heights of violence. And hey, y’know what, maybe that would affect your sanity too? And just as the icing on the cake, you’ll be considered a vile monster by almost EVERY OTHER LIVING THING so being good to people will just get you killed by the militia or a head cleric or an adventuring party. So yeah, there is definitely the possibility of a “good vampire” but when you consider the circumstances required for their creation and survival then it’s highly unlikely. But hey, you can change all this lore if you want to. Just thought this would be helpful to think about.
I agree with the sentiment here. A person turned vampire might not be evil in nature, but the circumstances of their entire existence would seem to eventually cause them to end up what is perceived as evil. Secluded, isolated, uncaring. Some may embrace their undead gift and revel in their acts of horror because they can or because they want to. Consider it similar to how a person who gains power/influence seem to eventually become more and more selfish, uncaring, rude - what could be perceived as evil. Power corrupts as they say, and living for eternity is plenty of time to eventually get there.
The MM's description that PCs who gets turned immediately shift alignment is... not necessarily very realistic for the setting but is likely a game mechanic that the one who turned them is controlling them somewhat - otherwise turning a creature into a vampire would always carry a risk that they turn on their creator - which many literary works say the turned cannot do.
If the player can provide a compelling circumstance for a typically evil creature to be good, I see no reason why not.
Anti-heroes are a beautiful thing!
It's not really up to the player, though. The DM is the one writing the larger world. Imo, encouraging players to push for their particular interpretation/narrative of how things should be is not really a productive point to bring to tables. Honestly, I sometimes feel like people push too hard for moral relativism/free agency/etc. for everything in D&D. This is fantasy, concepts like good and evil are supposed to have some clearly formed and defined agents, particularly when it comes to beings who exist outside of the mortal experience.
Finally, as a personal take, anti-heroes are overrated and the term is often used as a fig leaf to explain why it's acceptable for this character to brutally torture and kill people they don't like, but not for those people over there to. An evil character's goals can still align with the party's if you want them to cooperate for a bit, you don't have to twist conventional morality into a pretzel to justify the interaction.
Definitely something the player should clear with their GM if they go creative.
The desire for more morally ambiguous characters is often a desire for more layered character designs and opportunities for choices and growths. They are also somewhat more relatable. Cardboard good-guys and cardboard bad-guys are not always that interesting to design or explore. But for the story black-n-white definitions of some people or forces that you have a conflict with is an easy thing to understand and simplifies the need for motivation for that conflict. This simplicity don't need to extend to your player characters.
Additionally a party of mainly cardboard good-guys cannot realistically have a cardboard bad-guy in the party, without causing a ruckus of everything. A party of more morally flexible characters may dislike characters in their party of an opposite alignment and try to convince them or oppose them when their character feels they need to intervene but otherwise you can operate in the same group for a common purpose/quest. The few parties I've been a part of in 3e has had characters of opposite alignments within the party and operating under the cardboard rules; "I'm evil, I do evil things. I kick that child in the face." It's mainly just a bickering fest, or the evils trying to hide their sinister actions, that culminates in players trying to kill each other or wanting to leave the party to be true to their cardboard alignment. Mostly a recipe for a bad time/story.
There’s a wide spectrum between “cardboard alignment” and “alignment is entirely subjective”; you’ll note that I even specifically said that the harder alignment polarization is more for non-mortal beings ie: ones not written or designed to be player characters. To return to the main thread topic, vampires as written in D&D are not just people with a physiological condition; they’re victims of a curse that fundamentally alters their worldview.
Also, regarding moral ambiguity, aside from the fact that “Good” doesn’t mean a character must be a saccharine after school special character in order to tend towards morally upstanding behavior, that’s why we have the “Neutral” category. Good and Evil characters should not be able to work easily with each other; the point of having the three tier structure is to differentiate simply pragmatic and/or self-interested individuals from those who are ready to actively harm and victimize others for their own gain. The incompatibility is a feature, not a flaw, particularly with the broad grey are Neutral creates leaving considerable room for creative freedom in character design without creating conflicting priorities. Which segues into the final point, that ultimately it’s up to the players and DM to work out a good party dynamic in Session 0, which includes getting on the same page for alignment meanings and how far towards Evil the party as a whole can accommodate (or possibly towards Good if this is an Evil campaign, but those are rather few and far between).
There’s a wide spectrum between “cardboard alignment” and “alignment is entirely subjective”; you’ll note that I even specifically said that the harder alignment polarization is more for non-mortal beings ie: ones not written or designed to be player characters. To return to the main thread topic, vampires as written in D&D are not just people with a physiological condition; they’re victims of a curse that fundamentally alters their worldview.
You greatly overestimate the consistency of D&D lore. For example, what alignment is Jander Sunstar?
There’s a wide spectrum between “cardboard alignment” and “alignment is entirely subjective”; you’ll note that I even specifically said that the harder alignment polarization is more for non-mortal beings ie: ones not written or designed to be player characters. To return to the main thread topic, vampires as written in D&D are not just people with a physiological condition; they’re victims of a curse that fundamentally alters their worldview.
You greatly overestimate the consistency of D&D lore. For example, what alignment is Jander Sunstar?
Perhaps I should have specifically said “as written in the 5e Monster Manual”, although I would have thought the context made it implicit.
Perhaps I should have specifically said “as written in the 5e Monster Manual”, although I would have thought the context made it implicit.
As the question was not about the monster manual, I would say analyzing the monster manual entry isn't even correct, let alone implicit.
The question was about “vampires”; given that this is the official website for the 5th edition of D&D and the contradictory nature of cross-edition creature lore, it is likewise implicit that the discussion be centered on vampires as presented in 5th edition, at which point we refer to the primary and almost only official source of 5e lore for vampires, the edition’s Monster Manual. I am clearly under no illusions about the consistency of 50 years and several dozen different writers’ worth of material, but within the primary continuum of discussion on this site, the MM is indeed the correct source.
Also, regarding moral ambiguity, aside from the fact that “Good” doesn’t mean a character must be a saccharine after school special character in order to tend towards morally upstanding behavior, that’s why we have the “Neutral” category. Good and Evil characters should not be able to work easily with each other; the point of having the three tier structure is to differentiate simply pragmatic and/or self-interested individuals from those who are ready to actively harm and victimize others for their own gain.
I feel like you're narrowing good and evil more than you need to here.
Good is broadly selfless (i.e- helping others) while evil is broadly selfish (only care about yourself or your own faction/goals etc.). It is entirely possible to be evil without going around actively harming others, evil just means you're capable of it, not that you try to do it at every opportunity. An evil character may be just as likely to sneak in and steal something without anyone being the wiser, rather killing the guards just because they can.
Likewise a good character is capable of doing something terrible if they believe it serves some greater good, e.g- sacrificing hundreds if it means saving millions. The example I always like to give is if you know a village contains a cult that is going to summon an archfiend to the prime material plane, and you're rapidly running out of time – you'd best believe a chaotic good gold dragon is just going to raze that village to the ground just to be safe, and they'd arguably be right to do so as trying to find and stop the cult could risk being too slow.
If you get too narrow with the good and evil ends of the spectrum you just end up forcing everything into the neutral area, at which point why have the alignment at all? There's definitely a lot of breadth to what each alignment category (chaotic/neutral/lawful and evil/neutral/good) can represent. Neutral can likewise represent a bunch of different things such as characters who care about their found family and would do what it takes to protect them, but would stop short of kicking orphans to death to steal their food.
It's worth keeping in mind you can play a thief who never kills, but can absolutely still be evil if they don't care who they steal from (e.g- will happily rob the poor), or will take any contract no matter how shady etc. They could also be good if they're more of a Robin Hood type (Folk Hero background, anyone?), only stealing from those who can spare it in order to help those who need it most – they don't have to be actively fighting evil for a living to be good.
Also, good and evil characters can absolutely coexist so long as their goals align somehow. I played a neutral evil character in a Curse of Strahd campaign who joined a party of mixed good and neutral characters because he wanted to see Strahd's curse ended to see if it would give any insights to lifting a curse of his own. This meant that his goals aligned with the others who wanted to lift the curse to save (and escape) Barovia. From the party's perspective he was just a stand-offish, sometimes a bit creepy, sorcerer working towards the same goal, who perhaps resorted to Intimidation a little too easily. He even helped a party member who nearly died – though if it had been riskier (to him) he might not. Ultimately he was pragmatic and rational so entirely capable of working with others, but evil because of his ability to be extremely ruthless – if killing someone would get him to his goal faster he'd consider it, but only if there weren't better options (e.g- he'd threaten them, and if they don't move, it's their own fault rather than his) etc.
Obviously an evil character whose goal is to eradicate all life, and a good character whose goal is to defeat all evil, couldn't coexist, but each of those is a tiny minority in two very broad alignment categories.
There’s a wide spectrum between “cardboard alignment” and “alignment is entirely subjective”; you’ll note that I even specifically said that the harder alignment polarization is more for non-mortal beings ie: ones not written or designed to be player characters. To return to the main thread topic, vampires as written in D&D are not just people with a physiological condition; they’re victims of a curse that fundamentally alters their worldview.
You greatly overestimate the consistency of D&D lore. For example, what alignment is Jander Sunstar?
That's an interesting one, because he actively hates and wants to destroy all vampires, including himself. So he must at least consider himself to be inherently evil just for being a vampire if he thinks all vampires are irredeemable.
I'd probably put him under chaotic good personally on the basis of being a "whatever it takes for the greater good" type but he's deeply flawed to the point you could easily argue some flavour of neutral.
You could also argue evil on the "monster who hunts monsters" basis though I'm not personally a fan of that – it's one of the options in the Haunted One background though I feel like they don't really make clear what makes it evil. For example, if you're willing to butcher your way through a crowd just to get at your target then sure, that can be considered evil, but if it's just that you're a "monster" in the eyes of others in the same way as say a Witcher, or a Dhampir or whatever might be then I wouldn't factor that into alignment personally.
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I have unsubscribed from all topics and will not reply to messages. My homebrew is now 100% unsupported.
The question was about “vampires”; given that this is the official website for the 5th edition of D&D and the contradictory nature of cross-edition creature lore, it is likewise implicit that the discussion be centered on vampires as presented in 5th edition, at which point we refer to the primary and almost only official source of 5e lore for vampires, the edition’s Monster Manual.
Even if we're limiting ourselves to 5e, Jander Sunstar is in Descent into Avernus. I would also argue that it isn't valid to ignore Baldur's Gate 3.
Also, regarding moral ambiguity, aside from the fact that “Good” doesn’t mean a character must be a saccharine after school special character in order to tend towards morally upstanding behavior, that’s why we have the “Neutral” category. Good and Evil characters should not be able to work easily with each other; the point of having the three tier structure is to differentiate simply pragmatic and/or self-interested individuals from those who are ready to actively harm and victimize others for their own gain.
I feel like you're narrowing good and evil more than you need to here.
Good is broadly selfless (i.e- helping others) while evil is broadly selfish (only care about yourself or your own faction/goals etc.). It is entirely possible to be evil without going around actively harming others, evil just means you're capable of it, not that you try to do it at every opportunity. An evil character may be just as likely to sneak in and steal something without anyone being the wiser, rather killing the guards just because they can.
Likewise a good character is capable of doing something terrible if they believe it serves some greater good, e.g- sacrificing hundreds if it means saving millions. The example I always like to give is if you know a village contains a cult that is going to summon an archfiend to the prime material plane, and you're rapidly running out of time – you'd best believe a chaotic good gold dragon is just going to raze that village to the ground just to be safe, and they'd arguably be right to do so as trying to find and stop the cult could risk being too slow.
If you get too narrow with the good and evil ends of the spectrum you just end up forcing everything into the neutral area, at which point why have the alignment at all? There's definitely a lot of breadth to what each alignment category (chaotic/neutral/lawful and evil/neutral/good) can represent. Neutral can likewise represent a bunch of different things such as characters who care about their found family and would do what it takes to protect them, but would stop short of kicking orphans to death to steal their food.
It's worth keeping in mind you can play a thief who never kills, but can absolutely still be evil if they don't care who they steal from (e.g- will happily rob the poor), or will take any contract no matter how shady etc. They could also be good if they're more of a Robin Hood type (Folk Hero background, anyone?), only stealing from those who can spare it in order to help those who need it most – they don't have to be actively fighting evil for a living to be good.
Also, good and evil characters can absolutely coexist so long as their goals align somehow. I played a neutral evil character in a Curse of Strahd campaign who joined a party of mixed good and neutral characters because he wanted to see Strahd's curse ended to see if it would give any insights to lifting a curse of his own. This meant that his goals aligned with the others who wanted to lift the curse to save (and escape) Barovia. From the party's perspective he was just a stand-offish, sometimes a bit creepy, sorcerer working towards the same goal, who perhaps resorted to Intimidation a little too easily. He even helped a party member who nearly died – though if it had been riskier (to him) he might not. Ultimately he was pragmatic and rational so entirely capable of working with others, but evil because of his ability to be extremely ruthless – if killing someone would get him to his goal faster he'd consider it, but only if there weren't better options (e.g- he'd threaten them, and if they don't move, it's their own fault rather than his) etc.
Obviously an evil character whose goal is to eradicate all life, and a good character whose goal is to defeat all evil, couldn't coexist, but each of those is a tiny minority in two very broad alignment categories.
There’s a wide spectrum between “cardboard alignment” and “alignment is entirely subjective”; you’ll note that I even specifically said that the harder alignment polarization is more for non-mortal beings ie: ones not written or designed to be player characters. To return to the main thread topic, vampires as written in D&D are not just people with a physiological condition; they’re victims of a curse that fundamentally alters their worldview.
You greatly overestimate the consistency of D&D lore. For example, what alignment is Jander Sunstar?
That's an interesting one, because he actively hates and wants to destroy all vampires, including himself. So he must at least consider himself to be inherently evil just for being a vampire if he thinks all vampires are irredeemable.
I'd probably put him under chaotic good personally on the basis of being a "whatever it takes for the greater good" type but he's deeply flawed to the point you could easily argue some flavour of neutral.
You could also argue evil on the "monster who hunts monsters" basis though I'm not personally a fan of that – it's one of the options in the Haunted One background though I feel like they don't really make clear what makes it evil. For example, if you're willing to butcher your way through a crowd just to get at your target then sure, that can be considered evil, but if it's just that you're a "monster" in the eyes of others in the same way as say a Witcher, or a Dhampir or whatever might be then I wouldn't factor that into alignment personally.
I’m working from my phone right now, and so don’t have the time for a full monograph. My point was that the morality spectrum is already broad within the three categories, and the failure of “cardboard alignments” as described is more down to players designing characters without taking party dynamics as a whole into account. “Good” and “Evil” strongly indicate there should be inherent friction. You’ll note that I did not say Good and Evil cannot work together, I said they should not easily work together.
Regarding your thief example, that’s starting to get into the weeds of semantics on alignment; one might argue that indifference tends towards Neutral as they are only incidentally causing harm in pursuit of their objectives, or that the fundamental amorality and apathy of their nature is ultimately Evil. I’m not saying that Evil must be overt “villainy”, just that there’s a lot of room for traditional morally ambiguous personalities in Neutral; if nothing else, as I said in another discussion, making your morally ambiguous anti-hero Evil can throw up some flags at a table that Neutral doesn’t. Really, imo your Strahd character’s example is straddling the same like; he doesn’t have an ultimately harmful endgame objective, and he’s more just asocial and pragmatic about matters rather than routinely having things like torture or murder as a first resort. Basically, for moral ambiguity in Evil I see that more as the really messy/brutal “for the greater good” types. If you’re running the revolution that’s toppled a despotic state and have grown comfortable with the guillotine as a solution to all the “enemies of the people” who are standing in the way of reforming the broken system, including those not sufficiently zealous in pursuing reform, then that’s a morally ambiguous position but I’d put the character’s alignment at Evil because they’re actively fomenting a reign of terror in pursuit of their goals. Doesn’t necessarily mean they’re an irredeemable monster, just that they ended up a ways down the slippery slope.
There’s a wide spectrum between “cardboard alignment” and “alignment is entirely subjective”; you’ll note that I even specifically said that the harder alignment polarization is more for non-mortal beings ie: ones not written or designed to be player characters. To return to the main thread topic, vampires as written in D&D are not just people with a physiological condition; they’re victims of a curse that fundamentally alters their worldview.
Also, regarding moral ambiguity, aside from the fact that “Good” doesn’t mean a character must be a saccharine after school special character in order to tend towards morally upstanding behavior, that’s why we have the “Neutral” category. Good and Evil characters should not be able to work easily with each other; the point of having the three tier structure is to differentiate simply pragmatic and/or self-interested individuals from those who are ready to actively harm and victimize others for their own gain. The incompatibility is a feature, not a flaw, particularly with the broad grey are Neutral creates leaving considerable room for creative freedom in character design without creating conflicting priorities. Which segues into the final point, that ultimately it’s up to the players and DM to work out a good party dynamic in Session 0, which includes getting on the same page for alignment meanings and how far towards Evil the party as a whole can accommodate (or possibly towards Good if this is an Evil campaign, but those are rather few and far between).
My apologies. It was not my intent to imply your statement meant cardboard alignment types, those were my words to drive home a point about characters with a rigid view of their alignment are... difficult to make interesting as player characters and to work between characters of different alignments. They are often very dogmatic in their world view.
Also I don't believe I said alignments are entirely subjective, just that there's room to work within the alignments, just as you say yourself.
You said that you oppose the players who want more moral ambiguity in everything for DnD. That includes player characters. Distinction between mortal or not is not descriptive to separate player characters from NPCs. If that's what you meant I guess we mostly agree that moral ambiguity for NPCs should be more sparingly used, but it would have been clearer to say that.
As for parties of opposite aligned characters working together I believe I said exactly what you now say about there being frictions and interpersonal conflict, but they can find reason to work together for a common purpose. The problem I find with lumping the majority of moral ambiguity into the Neutral category is that... most characters end up being neutrals as they have certain principles that align themselves either good or evil but then there's other areas where they are more... loose on their moral confinements.
Take for instance a character whose whole village was slaughtered by Orcs and they were the sole survivor hiding in a crawlspace. That character may end up good aligned but when it comes to Orcs... nothing is off limits, nothing is too far, they all need to die. The more gruesome and torturous the better. For such a character to shift like that, I understand that you would place them in the Neutral category, whereas I'm happy to place them in the Good category - because their tendency is to be Good, but not limited to acts of Good. Depending on how deep the character delves into this sadistic nature they may end up actually shifting alignment, but it's a matter of consistency.
Another example could be Geralt of Rivia, specifically from the Witcher 3 game. The "Killing Monsters" trailer showcases witchers, Geralt and Vesimir, being paid for a contract and they observe the employer attempting to **** a captured young girl. Geralt fights with his inner desire to help the weak against the desire to remain neutral to secure self preservation (for him and his Witcher kin). Vesimir even advices Geralt not to engage, but in the end Geralt chooses to kill their employer and set the girl free.
There are many other scenarios (in different Witcher works) where Geralt acts intermediate between monsters and the people they pester, often at his own expense, because he don't want to kill unless necessary.
I would say Geralt is inherently trying to be good, but he knows he brings ill fortune over himself and his kin if he doesn't remain neutral (at least to humanity).
There’s a wide spectrum between “cardboard alignment” and “alignment is entirely subjective”; you’ll note that I even specifically said that the harder alignment polarization is more for non-mortal beings ie: ones not written or designed to be player characters.
To return to the main thread topic, vampires as written in D&D are not just people with a physiological condition; they’re victims of a curse that fundamentally alters their worldview.
That's fair:
"[Vampire's] emotional attachments wither as once-pure feelings become twisted by undeath. Love turns into hungry obsession, while friendship becomes bitter jealousy. " -https://www.dndbeyond.com/monsters/17043-vampire
But I will say, while there are generally less exceptions for the alignments of vampires, people like Jander prove that vampires aren't always evil. And a lot of the effects of the vampiric curse are up to the DM. For instance, you pick whether or not they retain their memories and if they're able to fight off these evil tendencies and be less of an abhorrent beast than we view them as.
The question was about “vampires”; given that this is the official website for the 5th edition of D&D and the contradictory nature of cross-edition creature lore, it is likewise implicit that the discussion be centered on vampires as presented in 5th edition, at which point we refer to the primary and almost only official source of 5e lore for vampires, the edition’s Monster Manual.
Even if we're limiting ourselves to 5e, Jander Sunstar is in Descent into Avernus. I would also argue that it isn't valid to ignore Baldur's Gate 3.
Regarding your thief example, that’s starting to get into the weeds of semantics on alignment; one might argue that indifference tends towards Neutral as they are only incidentally causing harm in pursuit of their objectives, or that the fundamental amorality and apathy of their nature is ultimately Evil.
If evil is to harm others, then whether or not you're doing it indirectly isn't really relevant, otherwise you're at risk of giving a free pass to politicians (the most morally reprehensible of all people). 😝
Stealing indiscriminately means you can end up stealing someone's life savings, robbing them of something of deep sentimental value (e.g- all that remains of a lost loved one), maybe the money they needed for life saving medicine for themselves or others etc.
Not caring about those impacts is precisely why there's a strong case for such a character to be evil. Trying to lump too much under "neutral" belittles the category IMO; actual neutrality is a difficult balancing act, you can't really be uncaring and be properly neutral. Apathetic maybe, if you're still generally trying to do some good (or live without harming others) within your own sphere, but that's again a form of balance, i.e- choosing not to help others, but also not to harm others either, could land you somewhere within neutral.
I've played plenty of neutral characters of various flavours, but while such a character might prioritise their own needs first, might be greedy etc., that doesn't mean they'll actively harm others to get what they want – they'll take the opportunities that seem morally justifiable, e.g- robbing from the wealthy or dangerous, taking rewards for defeating threats as is only fair (rather than working pro bono) etc. The moment a character goes from merely wanting wealth, to actually valuing it over the lives of others, they're treading firmly into evil territory.
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I'm not sure what the cardboard alignment argument is about. In general alignment should be variable unless one of two things is true:
The creature lacks free will. This is true for various lesser undead.
Existing as the creature requires a particular alignment. Some ways this might be true include:
Becoming a creature of that type requires an evil act (this is generally specific to evil acts, it's fairly easy to perform a single good act and still be overall evil)
Existing as a creature of that type requires ongoing acts; failure to perform those acts results in the creature dying, becoming inactive, or transforming into some other type of creature.
The definition of the creature involves alignment. For example, is a non-evil fiend still actually a fiend?
Aside from that, there are a fair number of creatures where being non-evil, while possible, is grossly inconvenient. Looking through those options:
Vampire Spawn are dominated by their creators, and thus lack free will until that control is removed (by, for example, destroying the creator). It seems unlikely that a non-evil creator would create vampire spawn, so non-evil vampire spawn would be at least quite rare (if a vampire spawn regains free will, it could presumably choose to be non-evil, but at a minimum it likely has a bunch of nasty habits from the period when it was controlled).
It is not well explained how a vampire spawn turns into a full vampire. If it's automatic when a vampire spawn becomes free willed, see vampire spawn above. If it requires additional actions, it depends on the actions required.
Existing as a vampire requires consuming blood. Originally in AD&D this was level drain, which pretty much forced you into evil because there's no way you aren't going to be killing a ton of people if every bite drains two levels. This was recognized as a problem rather early (the whole Ireena plot in Ravenloft doesn't work if Ireena dies the first time she gets bitten); in the current rules it appears possible for a vampire to feed without killing or permanently maiming people, so it seems possible (if inconvenient) to avoid ongoing evil acts, though you could easily adjust the template to make it impractical (for example, just having a chance to kill, such as requiring a save to stop drinking before the victim is dead, probably pushes you back into the mass murderer category).
I must admit, I introduced a vampire into my waterdeep setting. She was a someone who escaped ravenloft but survives on the blood of animals from the slaughter houses in the field ward. She is not evil (as long as her food supply is not threatened) and can be used as a scholar type person with specialised knowledge of the undead.
The clergy don't like her but as she does no harm to the citizens of Waterdeep she is tolerated. So to answer the question are vampires always evil, I personally don't think so but can be driven to commit evil acts much like player characters.
A WotC-sanctioned campaign has the possible outcome of [major Baldur's Gate III spoiler]
a horde of inexperienced and starving vampire spawns learning control (after going ham on everything they find in the Underdark) and finding a way to exist peacefully away from surface societies.
Granted, video games often must deviate from things upon which they're based because they're still video games at their core. So, take it as you wish. It's just here as an example that has some kind of relationship to D&D.
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Human. Male. Possibly. Don't be a divider. My characters' backgrounds are written like instruction manuals rather than stories. My opinion and preferences don't mean you're wrong. I am 99.7603% convinced that the digital dice are messing with me. I roll high when nobody's looking and low when anyone else can see.🎲 “It's a bit early to be thinking about an epitaph. No?” will be my epitaph.
Since I don't want undeath to be any kind of boon, I've invented my own explanation of what undeath is really all about:
What animates an undead isn't the soul of the deceased. Only negative things remain - painful memories, hurt and hate and spite and anger. Betrayal and jealousy and heartbreak. A vampire will remember all the pain of losing a loved one - but none of the love.
For this reason, undead do not have any choice about their alignment. And while exceptions aren't impossible - anything is acceptable to tell a good story - they're ... well, they've yet to happen.
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Vampires are undead. From DnD Lore, Necromancy and undead are viewed as evil. Vecna, Strahd, Acererak, all three BBEGs are technically undead and have an evil alignment. Take a look at the wizards of Thay. The lore says they are generally killed on sight due to their ties with necromancy.
Now. Lets also point out there can be exceptions to the rule.
I can't recall them completely but for lore example there is a way to be a good lich according to the elves I believe?
If we want to see BG3 as canon or even lore friendly, Astarion. He refused to feed on the party without consent. For the most part. And then there is Withers a Lich (at face value).
If we go with the DnD Movie there was a Thayan paladin. That's all I'll say as I'm trying not to give spoilers to any of them but there's more nuance.
My point is, you can be a vampire that's not evil. But you got to find a way to justify the consumption of human blood, even with consent this could be an act of barberry without nuance and context. Do they feed off animals? do they feed off convicted felons facing execution? feed in combat on hostiles?
I currently play a Neutral necromancer who's not your atypical necromancer. How I went about it is he was raised in the woods, loves to read books and worships Ogma, had a mastery of elemental magics. then he discovered Necromancy found it fascinating and decided to study it to understand the necrotic energies and its mimicry of life while harming life. Makes for some interesting RP with him being oblivious to social cues and not seeing himself as a necromancer. He just likes to learn new things. Sometimes he inadvertently scares npcs dumping his skeletons out of a bag of holding offering to help, other times he cries when the party drags him away because he just wants to read a book and the store has them in glass cases he cant touch or they drag him out of the library for the next quest. In combat he does his thing and offers a lot of support and debuffs. He is strictly neutral well meaning wizard who is mistaken as a necromancer because he is studying the properties of necrotic energy as opposed to creating a undead army as an evil edgelord McLame overlord.
I agree that exceptions can be made. Provided there's an explanation for it, you can simply brute-force it and just give the vampire, or the undead, their soul back. Like Angel in the Buffyverse. Which, barring acts-of-God, is what I alluded to as a potential double crime against nature - the creation of an undead, and then the undead receiving their soul back in their undead condition.
Astarion is a compelling case. He says he doesn't feed on the party - fine. We don't see him do it. We don't know where he goes at night, so in spite of what we learn about him later, it's still possible he gets people blood whenever he can - just not from the party. After all once his Bite ability becomes available, you can have him use it on acceptable targets in combat, but only when the player allows him to do it. That gets addressed later, and it's interesting the way they frame it. But at the end of the day, he's the stereotypical soulless creature who desires blood and power. He crafts no illusions to cover that fact. I think it's not a question of whether a vampire, spawn or true, can be "Good", but whether they can be tamed. After all, wolves are "Evil" and they can be tamed. I would say that Forgotten Realms' vampires are wolves writ large.
And beyond that, there's the understanding that for your homebrew setting, or a movie, or a video game, you can simply make it up. "Vampires in the rules as written and the lore are Evil - but in our game/movie, they aren't" or "we've added an exception to the rule."
The way I view it, the living are a wellspring of life energy, and vampires must take it from them, whether or not consent is given, and that is simply not desirable for...well, the living. And vampires are an unnatural and spiteful creation to begin with. So when getting down to brass tacks, stake 'em. Kelemvor is calling.
Hasn't the entire alignment discussion/consensus shifted a bit from being written in stone to being more flexible? Basically it's not really a good alignment but rather a proclivity to do selfless acts, be benevolent, be considerate, or cooperate, whilst evil is more being selfish, uncaring, destructive, or prioritizing personal ambition. Basically do you care about others or only yourself?
Similarly lawful and chaotic is more a world view on the law of the people/society or perhaps the origin of your morality. Either you follow the law of the people or you choose to follow your own conviction.
Neutral morality (as in good-neutral-evil) I find resonates with being apathetic/opportunistic. They operate in a mostly hands-off mentality, don't want to get involved but on occasion find motive to either do acts of good or evil. Neutral conviction (as in lawful-neutral-chaotic) operate mostly under the law of the people until their personal convictions clashes enough with the law that they break it.
And funny you should mention Magic: the Gathering, as a very prominent vampiric figure in that universe is Sorin Markov, who definitely has evil tendencies BUT also recognized that his vampiric brothers and sisters were taking over the world from the human population and they would end up destroying their source of food. To restore some semblance of balance; he created Avacyn, an angel of hope, as a functional defense for humanity on the plane. Avacyn turned the tide of the war between humanity and vampires/darkness back into the humans' favor to the point that evil was the force that was the more oppressed and hunted, driven into sanctuaries of shadows or strongholds of evil.
Was Sorin's motive self-preservation? Did he perceive a need to keep evil in check for the good of the plane? In DnD terms was that an act of Good? Evil? Neutral?
I think many who delved into his lore would say he's morally grey, tilting toward evil but ultimately selfish in nature. However he can see beyond his more mundane needs and when his own power is insufficient to combat a problem (like against the reality-eating Eldrazi) he finds others to cooperate with.
This is just to say that evil is not necessarily all destruction, mutilation, horror, and the like. I feel like self-serving is a good adjective to describe evil in DnD. But there definitely also exists pure evil that just want to watch the world burn.
I agree with the sentiment here. A person turned vampire might not be evil in nature, but the circumstances of their entire existence would seem to eventually cause them to end up what is perceived as evil. Secluded, isolated, uncaring. Some may embrace their undead gift and revel in their acts of horror because they can or because they want to. Consider it similar to how a person who gains power/influence seem to eventually become more and more selfish, uncaring, rude - what could be perceived as evil. Power corrupts as they say, and living for eternity is plenty of time to eventually get there.
The MM's description that PCs who gets turned immediately shift alignment is... not necessarily very realistic for the setting but is likely a game mechanic that the one who turned them is controlling them somewhat - otherwise turning a creature into a vampire would always carry a risk that they turn on their creator - which many literary works say the turned cannot do.
Definitely something the player should clear with their GM if they go creative.
The desire for more morally ambiguous characters is often a desire for more layered character designs and opportunities for choices and growths. They are also somewhat more relatable. Cardboard good-guys and cardboard bad-guys are not always that interesting to design or explore. But for the story black-n-white definitions of some people or forces that you have a conflict with is an easy thing to understand and simplifies the need for motivation for that conflict. This simplicity don't need to extend to your player characters.
Additionally a party of mainly cardboard good-guys cannot realistically have a cardboard bad-guy in the party, without causing a ruckus of everything. A party of more morally flexible characters may dislike characters in their party of an opposite alignment and try to convince them or oppose them when their character feels they need to intervene but otherwise you can operate in the same group for a common purpose/quest.
The few parties I've been a part of in 3e has had characters of opposite alignments within the party and operating under the cardboard rules; "I'm evil, I do evil things. I kick that child in the face." It's mainly just a bickering fest, or the evils trying to hide their sinister actions, that culminates in players trying to kill each other or wanting to leave the party to be true to their cardboard alignment. Mostly a recipe for a bad time/story.
There’s a wide spectrum between “cardboard alignment” and “alignment is entirely subjective”; you’ll note that I even specifically said that the harder alignment polarization is more for non-mortal beings ie: ones not written or designed to be player characters. To return to the main thread topic, vampires as written in D&D are not just people with a physiological condition; they’re victims of a curse that fundamentally alters their worldview.
Also, regarding moral ambiguity, aside from the fact that “Good” doesn’t mean a character must be a saccharine after school special character in order to tend towards morally upstanding behavior, that’s why we have the “Neutral” category. Good and Evil characters should not be able to work easily with each other; the point of having the three tier structure is to differentiate simply pragmatic and/or self-interested individuals from those who are ready to actively harm and victimize others for their own gain. The incompatibility is a feature, not a flaw, particularly with the broad grey are Neutral creates leaving considerable room for creative freedom in character design without creating conflicting priorities. Which segues into the final point, that ultimately it’s up to the players and DM to work out a good party dynamic in Session 0, which includes getting on the same page for alignment meanings and how far towards Evil the party as a whole can accommodate (or possibly towards Good if this is an Evil campaign, but those are rather few and far between).
You greatly overestimate the consistency of D&D lore. For example, what alignment is Jander Sunstar?
Perhaps I should have specifically said “as written in the 5e Monster Manual”, although I would have thought the context made it implicit.
As the question was not about the monster manual, I would say analyzing the monster manual entry isn't even correct, let alone implicit.
The question was about “vampires”; given that this is the official website for the 5th edition of D&D and the contradictory nature of cross-edition creature lore, it is likewise implicit that the discussion be centered on vampires as presented in 5th edition, at which point we refer to the primary and almost only official source of 5e lore for vampires, the edition’s Monster Manual. I am clearly under no illusions about the consistency of 50 years and several dozen different writers’ worth of material, but within the primary continuum of discussion on this site, the MM is indeed the correct source.
I feel like you're narrowing good and evil more than you need to here.
Good is broadly selfless (i.e- helping others) while evil is broadly selfish (only care about yourself or your own faction/goals etc.). It is entirely possible to be evil without going around actively harming others, evil just means you're capable of it, not that you try to do it at every opportunity. An evil character may be just as likely to sneak in and steal something without anyone being the wiser, rather killing the guards just because they can.
Likewise a good character is capable of doing something terrible if they believe it serves some greater good, e.g- sacrificing hundreds if it means saving millions. The example I always like to give is if you know a village contains a cult that is going to summon an archfiend to the prime material plane, and you're rapidly running out of time – you'd best believe a chaotic good gold dragon is just going to raze that village to the ground just to be safe, and they'd arguably be right to do so as trying to find and stop the cult could risk being too slow.
If you get too narrow with the good and evil ends of the spectrum you just end up forcing everything into the neutral area, at which point why have the alignment at all? There's definitely a lot of breadth to what each alignment category (chaotic/neutral/lawful and evil/neutral/good) can represent. Neutral can likewise represent a bunch of different things such as characters who care about their found family and would do what it takes to protect them, but would stop short of kicking orphans to death to steal their food.
It's worth keeping in mind you can play a thief who never kills, but can absolutely still be evil if they don't care who they steal from (e.g- will happily rob the poor), or will take any contract no matter how shady etc. They could also be good if they're more of a Robin Hood type (Folk Hero background, anyone?), only stealing from those who can spare it in order to help those who need it most – they don't have to be actively fighting evil for a living to be good.
Also, good and evil characters can absolutely coexist so long as their goals align somehow. I played a neutral evil character in a Curse of Strahd campaign who joined a party of mixed good and neutral characters because he wanted to see Strahd's curse ended to see if it would give any insights to lifting a curse of his own. This meant that his goals aligned with the others who wanted to lift the curse to save (and escape) Barovia. From the party's perspective he was just a stand-offish, sometimes a bit creepy, sorcerer working towards the same goal, who perhaps resorted to Intimidation a little too easily. He even helped a party member who nearly died – though if it had been riskier (to him) he might not. Ultimately he was pragmatic and rational so entirely capable of working with others, but evil because of his ability to be extremely ruthless – if killing someone would get him to his goal faster he'd consider it, but only if there weren't better options (e.g- he'd threaten them, and if they don't move, it's their own fault rather than his) etc.
Obviously an evil character whose goal is to eradicate all life, and a good character whose goal is to defeat all evil, couldn't coexist, but each of those is a tiny minority in two very broad alignment categories.
That's an interesting one, because he actively hates and wants to destroy all vampires, including himself. So he must at least consider himself to be inherently evil just for being a vampire if he thinks all vampires are irredeemable.
I'd probably put him under chaotic good personally on the basis of being a "whatever it takes for the greater good" type but he's deeply flawed to the point you could easily argue some flavour of neutral.
You could also argue evil on the "monster who hunts monsters" basis though I'm not personally a fan of that – it's one of the options in the Haunted One background though I feel like they don't really make clear what makes it evil. For example, if you're willing to butcher your way through a crowd just to get at your target then sure, that can be considered evil, but if it's just that you're a "monster" in the eyes of others in the same way as say a Witcher, or a Dhampir or whatever might be then I wouldn't factor that into alignment personally.
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Even if we're limiting ourselves to 5e, Jander Sunstar is in Descent into Avernus. I would also argue that it isn't valid to ignore Baldur's Gate 3.
I’m working from my phone right now, and so don’t have the time for a full monograph. My point was that the morality spectrum is already broad within the three categories, and the failure of “cardboard alignments” as described is more down to players designing characters without taking party dynamics as a whole into account. “Good” and “Evil” strongly indicate there should be inherent friction. You’ll note that I did not say Good and Evil cannot work together, I said they should not easily work together.
Regarding your thief example, that’s starting to get into the weeds of semantics on alignment; one might argue that indifference tends towards Neutral as they are only incidentally causing harm in pursuit of their objectives, or that the fundamental amorality and apathy of their nature is ultimately Evil. I’m not saying that Evil must be overt “villainy”, just that there’s a lot of room for traditional morally ambiguous personalities in Neutral; if nothing else, as I said in another discussion, making your morally ambiguous anti-hero Evil can throw up some flags at a table that Neutral doesn’t. Really, imo your Strahd character’s example is straddling the same like; he doesn’t have an ultimately harmful endgame objective, and he’s more just asocial and pragmatic about matters rather than routinely having things like torture or murder as a first resort. Basically, for moral ambiguity in Evil I see that more as the really messy/brutal “for the greater good” types. If you’re running the revolution that’s toppled a despotic state and have grown comfortable with the guillotine as a solution to all the “enemies of the people” who are standing in the way of reforming the broken system, including those not sufficiently zealous in pursuing reform, then that’s a morally ambiguous position but I’d put the character’s alignment at Evil because they’re actively fomenting a reign of terror in pursuit of their goals. Doesn’t necessarily mean they’re an irredeemable monster, just that they ended up a ways down the slippery slope.
My apologies. It was not my intent to imply your statement meant cardboard alignment types, those were my words to drive home a point about characters with a rigid view of their alignment are... difficult to make interesting as player characters and to work between characters of different alignments. They are often very dogmatic in their world view.
Also I don't believe I said alignments are entirely subjective, just that there's room to work within the alignments, just as you say yourself.
You said that you oppose the players who want more moral ambiguity in everything for DnD. That includes player characters. Distinction between mortal or not is not descriptive to separate player characters from NPCs. If that's what you meant I guess we mostly agree that moral ambiguity for NPCs should be more sparingly used, but it would have been clearer to say that.
As for parties of opposite aligned characters working together I believe I said exactly what you now say about there being frictions and interpersonal conflict, but they can find reason to work together for a common purpose. The problem I find with lumping the majority of moral ambiguity into the Neutral category is that... most characters end up being neutrals as they have certain principles that align themselves either good or evil but then there's other areas where they are more... loose on their moral confinements.
Take for instance a character whose whole village was slaughtered by Orcs and they were the sole survivor hiding in a crawlspace. That character may end up good aligned but when it comes to Orcs... nothing is off limits, nothing is too far, they all need to die. The more gruesome and torturous the better. For such a character to shift like that, I understand that you would place them in the Neutral category, whereas I'm happy to place them in the Good category - because their tendency is to be Good, but not limited to acts of Good. Depending on how deep the character delves into this sadistic nature they may end up actually shifting alignment, but it's a matter of consistency.
Another example could be Geralt of Rivia, specifically from the Witcher 3 game. The "Killing Monsters" trailer showcases witchers, Geralt and Vesimir, being paid for a contract and they observe the employer attempting to **** a captured young girl. Geralt fights with his inner desire to help the weak against the desire to remain neutral to secure self preservation (for him and his Witcher kin). Vesimir even advices Geralt not to engage, but in the end Geralt chooses to kill their employer and set the girl free.
There are many other scenarios (in different Witcher works) where Geralt acts intermediate between monsters and the people they pester, often at his own expense, because he don't want to kill unless necessary.
I would say Geralt is inherently trying to be good, but he knows he brings ill fortune over himself and his kin if he doesn't remain neutral (at least to humanity).
This is especially true for undead.
That's fair:
But I will say, while there are generally less exceptions for the alignments of vampires, people like Jander prove that vampires aren't always evil. And a lot of the effects of the vampiric curse are up to the DM. For instance, you pick whether or not they retain their memories and if they're able to fight off these evil tendencies and be less of an abhorrent beast than we view them as.
I'm pretty sure he's also listed as an NPC or mist traveler or whatever in Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft.
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HERE.If evil is to harm others, then whether or not you're doing it indirectly isn't really relevant, otherwise you're at risk of giving a free pass to politicians (the most morally reprehensible of all people). 😝
Stealing indiscriminately means you can end up stealing someone's life savings, robbing them of something of deep sentimental value (e.g- all that remains of a lost loved one), maybe the money they needed for life saving medicine for themselves or others etc.
Not caring about those impacts is precisely why there's a strong case for such a character to be evil. Trying to lump too much under "neutral" belittles the category IMO; actual neutrality is a difficult balancing act, you can't really be uncaring and be properly neutral. Apathetic maybe, if you're still generally trying to do some good (or live without harming others) within your own sphere, but that's again a form of balance, i.e- choosing not to help others, but also not to harm others either, could land you somewhere within neutral.
I've played plenty of neutral characters of various flavours, but while such a character might prioritise their own needs first, might be greedy etc., that doesn't mean they'll actively harm others to get what they want – they'll take the opportunities that seem morally justifiable, e.g- robbing from the wealthy or dangerous, taking rewards for defeating threats as is only fair (rather than working pro bono) etc. The moment a character goes from merely wanting wealth, to actually valuing it over the lives of others, they're treading firmly into evil territory.
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I'm not sure what the cardboard alignment argument is about. In general alignment should be variable unless one of two things is true:
Aside from that, there are a fair number of creatures where being non-evil, while possible, is grossly inconvenient. Looking through those options:
I must admit, I introduced a vampire into my waterdeep setting. She was a someone who escaped ravenloft but survives on the blood of animals from the slaughter houses in the field ward. She is not evil (as long as her food supply is not threatened) and can be used as a scholar type person with specialised knowledge of the undead.
The clergy don't like her but as she does no harm to the citizens of Waterdeep she is tolerated. So to answer the question are vampires always evil, I personally don't think so but can be driven to commit evil acts much like player characters.
A WotC-sanctioned campaign has the possible outcome of [major Baldur's Gate III spoiler]
a horde of inexperienced and starving vampire spawns learning control (after going ham on everything they find in the Underdark) and finding a way to exist peacefully away from surface societies.
Granted, video games often must deviate from things upon which they're based because they're still video games at their core. So, take it as you wish. It's just here as an example that has some kind of relationship to D&D.
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My characters' backgrounds are written like instruction manuals rather than stories. My opinion and preferences don't mean you're wrong.
I am 99.7603% convinced that the digital dice are messing with me. I roll high when nobody's looking and low when anyone else can see.🎲
“It's a bit early to be thinking about an epitaph. No?” will be my epitaph.
Since I don't want undeath to be any kind of boon, I've invented my own explanation of what undeath is really all about:
What animates an undead isn't the soul of the deceased. Only negative things remain - painful memories, hurt and hate and spite and anger. Betrayal and jealousy and heartbreak. A vampire will remember all the pain of losing a loved one - but none of the love.
For this reason, undead do not have any choice about their alignment. And while exceptions aren't impossible - anything is acceptable to tell a good story - they're ... well, they've yet to happen.
Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.