They must be motivated either by a desire for wealth/fame/power, or they must have a desire to help other people. The latter option is out, so the evil character must the first criteria.
Or... they must have a good reason for pretending to be non-evil, and help other people as part of that pretense.
My Nightblade knew she had to fake being good, or at least non-evil, in front of the party, or she'd be minimally kicked out and possibly the paladin or cleric would have tried to have her arrested.
This. A creative player will find a way to keep their evil PC a tolerable part of the group. My character is very much the story of Wicked. Are evil people bad from day one, or does circumstance and perception drive them to be the ills of the world? Either my character will have one heck of a redemption arc, or will be about as terrible as our BBEG. But along the way, he's a very useful part of the group, and drives the story in a positive direction. Literature is filled with such characters.
The thing is, you know, as a player, that it will NOT work to have an evil character who is trying to do things like PVP-Mind control the party or execute innocent people right in front of the lawful good cleric. So don't make up a character who would do that.
It constantly amazes me how players act like their character was somehow foisted on them by a higher power. YOU make up the character, in all its details. YOU can decide to make someone like Judge, on Chain of Acheron, who can cooperate with a non-evil party, or someone who goes around trying to kill his own friends.
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Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
I would suggest you talk to the player about exactly what aspects of "Evil" their character is supposed to portray. "Evil" and "Good" are simply easy tags for much deeper behaviour.
If the player wants to play a character who is greedy and obsessed with gaining money, and will betray anyone for enough money, and doesn't care for completing the tasks the party is doing unless there is money, then they can readily play such a character under the brand "Neutral". If they tend towards doing good, but they have no qualms about doing bad to achieve it (like Rorschach from Watchmen) then they would be Neutral, as their doing bad is balanced by the fact that they do it to do good.
"Evil" is a scale in itself anyway. Let's say a party of 3 is asked to help the poor in a village, because they are starving whilst the nobles feast.
The good one will help the people to find their own food, and they will be fed on natural harvest like berries and stuff, which the nobles might take once the party has gone.
The neutral one might steal the food from the nobles, giving the poor some food but leaving them in the same situation when they leave.
The Evil one might break into the nobles house disguised as a vampire, and threaten to kill him if they ever find out that the poor have gone hungry.
Of those 3, the Evil one actually has the best results for the poor - a reliable source of decent food.
Provided that the Evil character's player can be relied upon to steer the evil character down the route of good, then their methods can add to the game. If they accept the "save the innocents" quest, then let their evil imagination run wild with how they can save them, then it can add to the game rather than derail it. You have to have that trust in the players that their character will not betray the party or go murderhobo, both of which make the game worse (generally).
There's a difference here between a character for whom "The ends justifies the means" and "I am evil."
Here's a more complex look at how I see alignments breaking down in this situation:
Lawful Good: Our LG character chooses to help the village. They approach the nobles and try to explain it to them. If that fails, they will attempt to find a legal recourse that means that the nobles cannot legally take the villagers' food. Her ideal resolution is that she discovers that the woodland is actually private village land, and the nobles cannot stop the village hunting and gathering there, or take their food. If the nobles break the law, she will take up arms against them.
Neutral Good: Our NG character wants to help the villagers however they have to, but they don't expect the nobles to stick to the law. They go ask the nobles to stop taking the villager's food, threatening them with force if necessary. Their ideal solution is that the nobles see reason.
Chaotic Good: Our CG character is Robin Hood. He goes and steals the villager's food back, kills the brutish overseer who stole it, and leaves his head as a warning.
Lawful Neutral: Our LN character looks over the law codes of the area to see what the rules state, and then insists that everyone follows them, regardless of the outcome. They are more concerned with maintaining order than anything else.
True Neutral: This character doesn't really care one way or the other. If people starve, they should sort it out themselves.
Chaotic Neutral: This character doesn't really care about right, wrong, law or crime. They probably got distracted by a butterfly, but they do like apple pie and will go rob those from the nobles if they think there's one to be found.
Lawful Evil: The LE player finds out that legally, the nobles are in the right and the law says that they can take the food. However, in researching it they discover that there is common land that is exempt from this rule. They accept a payment from the nobles not to tell the villagers.
Neutral Evil: The NE player is motivated by money principally. They will side with whichever side pays them the most. They will willingly raid the manor, but if they discover the nobles gold they may well abandon their food-recovery mission halfway. They will equally act as an enforcer for the nobles, and take the rest of the villagers' food in exchange for payment.
Chaotic Evil: The CE player doesn't care about anyone else's goals. They consider themselves beyond right and wrong, and their only moral compass is set to how they feel at any given moment. At night they kill the village headman for his gold chain of office, try to sell it to the nobles, see the nobles gold chain of office is better and kill them for good measure, walking off with everyone's loot.
I need to see if i can find a DM willing to let me run a "evil" character. Who is basically just a good guy who's life goal is to do something that most people would find "distasteful" or "evil". So basically not evil, so much as a fundamental disagreement with religious beliefs about the sanctity of death.
You see, in my opinion the guy in my example did indeed play Evil the way I imagine it should be. He was malevolent, like a Demon of Devil. It's straight out of the Player's Handbook. The problem with that guy is twofold. 1, he didn't care about any of the other players at all. He wasn't interested in their story. 2, he was the DM's friend, and the DM let him do it. We had fun, pretty much, so long as that guy wasn't around. We were all relieved, even the DM, when he went away.
You have to play smart, and you have to care more about the story than your own self. It's clear that it can be done, like in Bio's example, but it takes a very strong motivation for someone to suppress their inner nature. The DM has to give them a reason to care.
I think the main issue here is the alignment system, it is the one thing I have thrown out in my games, the idea that a good person can’t ever do anything evil without a change of alignment, or that an evil person can’t do something inherently good. My good players sometimes use torture and murder people, but they are doing it for good reasons.
This means that an evil character can exist with a good party and even let them know, they choose to turn a blind eye because he isn’t doing obviously evil stuff in front of them, isn’t trying to steal from them because the evil character understands that there survival and ability to get the thing done that needs doing relies on this group and them staying part of it.
If a player wants to play as an Evil alignment, then they still need to stick to the following:
They must be motivated either by a desire for wealth/fame/power, or they must have a desire to help other people. The latter option is out, so the evil character must the first criteria. This is perfectly fine. These are required conditions for PCs, because otherwise the DM has no ability to motivate characters to do anything.
The PC must recognise that they will not at any time be permitted to go into a PvP mode. They cannot steal from other players without the rest of the group agreeing to it, they cannot hide loot from the other players unless the other players are fine with it, and if they attack another player, they become an NPC under the control of the DM unless the other player is fine with it. At any time when a PC begins to act against the other members of the group, they should switch to being an NPC as otherwise you have to split the game.
They must play a character that ties in with the overall theme of the campaign, who is willing to go on the adventures with the party. The theme of the campaign should be discussed with the DM in session zero. If the theme is "The world is dying, and you will become embroiled trying to save it," then a backstory or personality that leads them to conflict with the party is not permissible, as it will spoil the game at some point.
The big thing that gets missed by most "I want to be evil" players: They must accept from the beginning that if their evil acts are noticed by the party, the party can eject them from the group and refuse to take them on further adventures. If this happens, the PC will be retired as an NPC. The biggest conflict I have seen with this scenario is where one PC murders an innocent shopkeeper or similar, and then expects that the rest of the party (neutral and good aligned) won't turn them over to the authorities or want to deal with them themselves. Even at the minor end, if you suspect your Thief is robbing innocent shopkeepers, your party of PCs may well choose to be rid of them. (inevitably this character conflict leads to conflict between the players). You also should not require a party of players running good aligned characters to have to pretend that they don't know one of the group is stealing from them, murdered a friendly NPC etc. Again it's bad for player conflict.
I knew a guy who wanted to play as a Mind Flayer who was trying to take over the minds of the party. That character was flat out banned. PvP combat in D&D is generally not fun, unless the players choose that they want to end the campaign resolving their differences.
I agree with some of this except for the last part, I played an openly evil character in a campaign, I actually met the party and told them I was from hell and wanted to help them overcome the same bad guy. This then led to me becoming part of the party longer term because I was gaining from learning about the material plane in order to gain more influence in hell. I “encouraged” some NPCs to sell their souls, but focussed on those who where morally ambiguous using the argument you can’t con an honest John with the party. I actually saved a women and her children and protected them risking my own life, in part because it would ingratiate me more with the party but also because in that moment I didn’t want to see innocents suffer, I played it off as the children where potential souls to be bought in the future but my DM understood that my character was deeper then just an evil guy.
In another campaign my character shifted from lawful good to plain up evil, we where trapped in a Groundhog Day campaign that lasted 2 years real time, my character as they approached level 8-9 realised that the longer this day continued the more I would continue to learn so started subtly, secretly doing things to stop the party ending it. I also used the fact that the day reset every day to learn, the darkest moment came when I told my DM I was spending a day on my own, kidnapped the pregnant bartender and told the DM I cast sleep, and then I look to see what babies look like on the inside. At that point I became proper evil, the campaign stopped because the players moved away but I had agreed with the DM that I would either become a bbeg npc, or as I approached level 20 would then feel that I was ready to escape the day and take all I had learnt to the world outside.
A lot of this depends on what you think various alignments mean. In general the requirement for the PCs getting along is that their goals and methods aren't incompatible, at which point what does it mean that the PC is evil?
In another campaign my character shifted from lawful good to plain up evil, we where trapped in a Groundhog Day campaign that lasted 2 years real time, my character as they approached level 8-9 realised that the longer this day continued the more I would continue to learn so started subtly, secretly doing things to stop the party ending it. I also used the fact that the day reset every day to learn, the darkest moment came when I told my DM I was spending a day on my own, kidnapped the pregnant bartender and told the DM I cast sleep, and then I look to see what babies look like on the inside. At that point I became proper evil, the campaign stopped because the players moved away but I had agreed with the DM that I would either become a bbeg npc, or as I approached level 20 would then feel that I was ready to escape the day and take all I had learnt to the world outside.
This is a perfect example of what I was describing.
You had your PC mutilate an innocent NPC. At that point, your choice of gameplay would have forced the other players to constantly pretend that they didn't know who and what your character was: you had made yourself a villain as bad as any BBEG, and then forced the other players to pretend they don't know. You as the evil-PC player get to carry on being all dark and mysterious and gross, and the others are forced to play like your stooges. I'd have quit the campaign at that point if it hadn't just happened to end by massive coincidence at the same time.
This isn't cool, and I would seriously advise any DMs to avoid enabling this kind of gameplay. I'd also make it really clear that the evil act you're describing in the post isn't an acceptable kind of act to play in a social game. Either you're playing it for shock value, and the other players will mind, or nobody in the group is grossed out, in which case you should find a new group anyway.
Alignment discussions tend to run for a lot of pages. The way I look at them is that each person has a mindset and only the wisest really are ever able to understand that other people think differently. They expect everyone to think and act as they do, and they will try and make others think and do as they do. Alignments are active things, not passive.
Lawful types think of themselves as part of society, they like order and structure, they follow laws and customs.
Chaotic types are free thinkers, they are rebellious sorts who decide what to do case-by-case.
Good types are benevolent, they are kind and compassionate.
Evil types are malevolent, they are cruel and inconsiderate.
Neutral types are uncaring, they don't act unless there's something in it for themselves.
When someone doesn't do things that a character likes, they will do something about it. Someone breaks the rules around a Lawful, they're going to use the system to punish them. If they don't have the authority themselves, they'll go get someone else to do it. Evil ones will want to see them hurt or killed, Good ones will try to use the system to help them. They do the same around a Chaotic, Good ones will help them get away with it. Evil ones will probably hurt or kill them on the spot no matter what the law says. (remember that being Chaotic doesn't mean stupid or random, they can decide how they go about doing things and Evil ones will make sure that they get away with whatever it is they do themselves.) Chaotic Neutrals won't care at all unless they can take advantage of the situation.
Evil is never about Greed. That's a Neutral thing. You're not worried about anyone else but yourself. It's not Good, but it's not really Evil either. The lust for Power is a Lawful thing. If the End Justifies the Means, that's classic to the way a Chaotic thinks.
If you want to be Evil, a Lawful Evil will need someone with high enough authority to give them orders and they will obey them to the letter most likely, but they need to be pretty specific about things like what they can and cannot do to the party and what they can and cannot do to help them achieve their goals. Remember that a Lawful Evil is full of malice, and the want to hurt or kill the others, so they will twist their orders in any way they can to get someone hurt or killed. Anyone who steps out of line is really likely to get punished somehow. As people have commented, it's probably easiest to work with a Lawful Evil. At least they are honorable in their twisted kind of way. They can be dealt with.
Neutral Evils don't really care about rules and just want things to hurt or die. Whatever it is that's got them into the party, it's got to be enormously strong or they're going to turn on the party. They could have the same parents as one of the players, and even Evil people can love someone. Just watch out, because they expect other people to think like they do, they won't understand kindness at all, they expect that the people around them will be plotting against them so they will be confused at best and the goal the party is trying to reach will need to be very clear.
Chaotic Evil probably isn't going to work. Not unless everyone is very experienced and prepared to deal with PvP. It might be done, if the party was primarily Chaotic, and the cause was rebellion, or getting someone out of prison, but even then, the Evil one is going to want to leave a litter of corpses in their wake, and the party would have to be cool with it. If they were fighting things they knew to be Evil, they'd regret all the deaths, but might consider that the Evil guys had it coming.
As a final note, remember always that Alignment isn't a straitjacket. People do things out of character all the time, but usually they don't stay that way for all that long. It is also true that even the worst people can have quirks. A Chaotic Evil might just love babies, and won't harm a hair on their heads, and they will react violently against anyone else who tries to hurt a baby or maybe even a young child. Any Evil can be like that, it's just a matter of how they react if someone else doesn't do the same things they do. Kick a child, a Lawful Evil will certainly see you punished somehow, but they'll need to find a way to use the system to do it. A Neutral Evil is may or may not kill you at once, but if they can find any way to benefit from your death, you're gonna die. If you see someone you know to be Evil doing something nice, whatever you do, don't mess with whatever it is they're being nice to.
Alignment discussions tend to run for a lot of pages. The way I look at them is that each person has a mindset and only the wisest really are ever able to understand that other people think differently. They expect everyone to think and act as they do, and they will try and make others think and do as they do.
<proceeds to try and make others think and do as they do>
Hm. I feel there's a problem here... though it's correct to note that 'what does alignment mean in your campaign' is key to the answer to this question.
In another campaign my character shifted from lawful good to plain up evil, we where trapped in a Groundhog Day campaign that lasted 2 years real time, my character as they approached level 8-9 realised that the longer this day continued the more I would continue to learn so started subtly, secretly doing things to stop the party ending it. I also used the fact that the day reset every day to learn, the darkest moment came when I told my DM I was spending a day on my own, kidnapped the pregnant bartender and told the DM I cast sleep, and then I look to see what babies look like on the inside. At that point I became proper evil, the campaign stopped because the players moved away but I had agreed with the DM that I would either become a bbeg npc, or as I approached level 20 would then feel that I was ready to escape the day and take all I had learnt to the world outside.
This is a perfect example of what I was describing.
You had your PC mutilate an innocent NPC. At that point, your choice of gameplay would have forced the other players to constantly pretend that they didn't know who and what your character was: you had made yourself a villain as bad as any BBEG, and then forced the other players to pretend they don't know. You as the evil-PC player get to carry on being all dark and mysterious and gross, and the others are forced to play like your stooges. I'd have quit the campaign at that point if it hadn't just happened to end by massive coincidence at the same time.
This isn't cool, and I would seriously advise any DMs to avoid enabling this kind of gameplay. I'd also make it really clear that the evil act you're describing in the post isn't an acceptable kind of act to play in a social game. Either you're playing it for shock value, and the other players will mind, or nobody in the group is grossed out, in which case you should find a new group anyway.
The other players had no idea, it actually came from me not being able to make a session, because of the nature of the campaign they went off and did a thing and the dm said I was doing something else. We then ran a one on one session and I made that final step to being evil and the DM loved it because it made perfect sense.
But after when I told the players they loved it to, it was absolutely the next step my character would have made. This was an insecure wizard who acted like he was better then he was and was driven to prove himself. The moment we realised it was a groundhog campaign and the characters realised that death was reset every day, my character slowly changed. First becoming more confident and less afraid of death, and then becoming reckless, putting other characters in danger. One character got a disease that we couldn’t cure (by this point we had learnt how to avoid the daily resets) so I killed him, because it made sense and to see if the disease was gone, he came back as expected the same (next) morning cured we had a moment in game and I allowed him to kill me in return, but the characters never got wind of the fact I had ulterior motives and did not want the day to carry on. I didn’t create the character aiming him to turn evil, but I did create a fully formed character with a personality and flaws which, under those specific circumstances, made him become evil in a very slow, natural way. I didn’t throw it in my other players faces, mainly because we very much play secrets stay secret and try and ensure that players only know as much as the characters when it comes to backstory.
I read the room and understood the players and dm who all loved the journey I took my character down. That barmaid, came back to life with baby in her and when the game ended the DM explained to cancel the Groundhog Day she actually would have had to have died with her baby anyway so I had stumbled randomly on something that would have reset the day. He purposely created a campaign with some very interesting moral questions, like what if you never truly die. All the players characters had moments having to deal with this. It is amazing what impact immortality can have on a characters actions.
Would I do that at every table, of course not, but assuming every table would hate something because you wouldnt like it is also wrong. I have played vampire the masquerade with horror fanatics who described every gory feed in detail, or had call of Cthulhu games that genuinely scared and disturbed us. If I or the dm at the time had stopped that behavior those players would have walked away.
What is important us you read the room, and as a dm you stop a player doing something that will upset your table.
Alignment discussions tend to run for a lot of pages. The way I look at them is that each person has a mindset and only the wisest really are ever able to understand that other people think differently. They expect everyone to think and act as they do, and they will try and make others think and do as they do. Alignments are active things, not passive.
Lawful types think of themselves as part of society, they like order and structure, they follow laws and customs.
Chaotic types are free thinkers, they are rebellious sorts who decide what to do case-by-case.
Good types are benevolent, they are kind and compassionate.
Evil types are malevolent, they are cruel and inconsiderate.
Neutral types are uncaring, they don't act unless there's something in it for themselves.
When someone doesn't do things that a character likes, they will do something about it. Someone breaks the rules around a Lawful, they're going to use the system to punish them. If they don't have the authority themselves, they'll go get someone else to do it. Evil ones will want to see them hurt or killed, Good ones will try to use the system to help them. They do the same around a Chaotic, Good ones will help them get away with it. Evil ones will probably hurt or kill them on the spot no matter what the law says. (remember that being Chaotic doesn't mean stupid or random, they can decide how they go about doing things and Evil ones will make sure that they get away with whatever it is they do themselves.) Chaotic Neutrals won't care at all unless they can take advantage of the situation.
Evil is never about Greed. That's a Neutral thing. You're not worried about anyone else but yourself. It's not Good, but it's not really Evil either. The lust for Power is a Lawful thing. If the End Justifies the Means, that's classic to the way a Chaotic thinks.
If you want to be Evil, a Lawful Evil will need someone with high enough authority to give them orders and they will obey them to the letter most likely, but they need to be pretty specific about things like what they can and cannot do to the party and what they can and cannot do to help them achieve their goals. Remember that a Lawful Evil is full of malice, and the want to hurt or kill the others, so they will twist their orders in any way they can to get someone hurt or killed. Anyone who steps out of line is really likely to get punished somehow. As people have commented, it's probably easiest to work with a Lawful Evil. At least they are honorable in their twisted kind of way. They can be dealt with.
Neutral Evils don't really care about rules and just want things to hurt or die. Whatever it is that's got them into the party, it's got to be enormously strong or they're going to turn on the party. They could have the same parents as one of the players, and even Evil people can love someone. Just watch out, because they expect other people to think like they do, they won't understand kindness at all, they expect that the people around them will be plotting against them so they will be confused at best and the goal the party is trying to reach will need to be very clear.
Chaotic Evil probably isn't going to work. Not unless everyone is very experienced and prepared to deal with PvP. It might be done, if the party was primarily Chaotic, and the cause was rebellion, or getting someone out of prison, but even then, the Evil one is going to want to leave a litter of corpses in their wake, and the party would have to be cool with it. If they were fighting things they knew to be Evil, they'd regret all the deaths, but might consider that the Evil guys had it coming.
As a final note, remember always that Alignment isn't a straitjacket. People do things out of character all the time, but usually they don't stay that way for all that long. It is also true that even the worst people can have quirks. A Chaotic Evil might just love babies, and won't harm a hair on their heads, and they will react violently against anyone else who tries to hurt a baby or maybe even a young child. Any Evil can be like that, it's just a matter of how they react if someone else doesn't do the same things they do. Kick a child, a Lawful Evil will certainly see you punished somehow, but they'll need to find a way to use the system to do it. A Neutral Evil is may or may not kill you at once, but if they can find any way to benefit from your death, you're gonna die. If you see someone you know to be Evil doing something nice, whatever you do, don't mess with whatever it is they're being nice to.
I think alignment is one of those things that no 2 DMs or players will ever agree on and both are right and do have no right to say someone else is doing it wrong, I like your approach to it, very different to mine and I don’t think I would use yours but I see the benefits of it. Ideally I think alignment as a concept should have been taken out of DnD ages ago but it is a legacy mechanic that many like and as with all the other rules DMs can just ignore it.
I do think it massively over simplifies a very complicated concept of moral compass and how personal beliefs and goals can impact character behaviour. But it kind if works as a touch point for new players.
I'm partial to the idea that alignment is based off social constructs as well as just general behavior. Like people REALLY dislike when you raise the dead. So a necromancer is seen as evil, even if that person is only doing these things to allow people say their last goodbyes or is using their undead horde to accomplish tasks that are far to risky to use living beings for. For a different example; the local lord's "muscle" is totally lawful good, even though they just beat the old man Wilson within an inch of his life, and took most of his stuff. Old man Wilson hasn't been paying his taxes, so the local lord had to send people to get what he is legally owed. Or maybe they are lawful evil, guess it depends who you ask...
Suppose there is a law against raising the dead. People hate it, and they got a law passed about that. A Lawful Good would be against a Necromancer breaking the law, but might understand if the Necromancer had good intentions and try to find some legal way to deal with that. They might arrest him, or have someone do it, but help them get justice by hiring a lawyer for them or something similar. They could plead his case before whomever it was that passed the law. A Neutral Good would see to it that the law was enforced unless they were able to benefit personally in some way from the Necromancer's actions, and if so, they'd do the same thing as a Lawful Good. A Lawful Evil absolutely find some legal way to help out, and would likely do the same thing as a Lawful Good in the end. A Chaotic of any kind might be delighted to help a Necromancer in breaking the laws. If they saw the Necromancer had good intentions, they would almost absolutely help out. A Chaotic Neutral would only help if there was something in it for them, but they wouldn't stop the Necromancer, and they'd just decide for themselves what they would do based on the situation. A Chaotic Evil would pretty much absolutely help out.
That is, of course something that might depend on other factors. Maybe they also agree about raising the dead, it's a quirk of theirs, that's pretty common. Then none of them of any Alignment would help the Necromancer. If they loved anyone that got raised, they'd probably be outraged. Each person gets to decide, and nobody behaves with perfect consistency. Anyone might make a mistake, or do something Evil as a bad call. They'd probably try to fix things, but they couldn't take it all back.
If you or DM won't allow your character to "break" alignment now and then without over compensating/punishing the character for it, you and/or your DM are pretty trash at roleplaying. People are not machines that exist and act only within vaguely defined parameters.
That aside; the biggest issue with discussing this is that any way anyone explains their outlook, is that it will almost always come off as trite and BS to anyone else. Like your way of playing those alignments sounds painfully terrible to me, but i'm sure they are how you would best enjoy playing the character yourself and that's 100% fine.
If you or DM won't allow your character to "break" alignment now and then without over compensating/punishing the character for it, you and/or your DM are pretty trash at roleplaying. People are not machines that exist and act only within vaguely defined parameters.
That aside; the biggest issue with discussing this is that any way anyone explains their outlook, is that it will almost always come off as trite and BS to anyone else. Like your way of playing those alignments sounds painfully terrible to me, but i'm sure they are how you would best enjoy playing the character yourself and that's 100% fine.
I think you need to understand the history of where alignment came from and how strict the rules made sticking to it in old editions. Geann’s approach is absolutely legit in a world where breaking from alignment turns a god against you, it is also kind of RAW which is how DnD earlier editions worked, if a cleric did anything against alignment or allowed it to happen, their deity would punish and they might lose their access to powers. The rules defined that as being absolute.
As a DM I choose not to play so strict to alignment but the joy of tabletop roleplay games is no 2 DMs have to run the same way and sometimes being forced to obey certain rules can be an interesting change.
that honestly sounds exhausting and terrible. Like i get it with the big stuff, but i'm just imagining an oath to "help the needy/injured" and having to RP wiping EVERY child's nose in EVERY village. Did someone get a splinter? better burn my 3rd level spell slot to heal that RIGHT NOW.
Like how do you enjoy a game where the DM makes you the metaphorical slave of the power tripping noble. Like you know they are power tripping, but TECHNICALLY they aren't breaking any laws so you have to let them continue to abuse everyone of a lower station OR you straight up get cut off at the knee by your micro managing god?
How I play it in my own game is I keep the guidelines I have worked out in mind, I tell the other players what they are before play is started and long before session zero. We might dicuss it during that session, and then I let the players do absolutely anything they like and I don't intervene or punish them in any way.
It's meant to be a roleplaying tool at this point in D&D. I hated when the rules for Alignment actually had game effects. Just a simple hook to help them imagine their character. I don't care at all what they do. That's up to them. All I do is try and help them in the beginning.
that honestly sounds exhausting and terrible. Like i get it with the big stuff, but i'm just imagining an oath to "help the needy/injured" and having to RP wiping EVERY child's nose in EVERY village. Did someone get a splinter? better burn my 3rd level spell slot to heal that RIGHT NOW.
Like how do you enjoy a game where the DM makes you the metaphorical slave of the power tripping noble. Like you know they are power tripping, but TECHNICALLY they aren't breaking any laws so you have to let them continue to abuse everyone of a lower station OR you straight up get cut off at the knee by your micro managing god?
"Lawful" doesn't - and never has - meant that a character obeys the law. That's a bit of a misunderstanding. Lawful means that the creature favours order and regulation, and the Lawful/Neutral/Chaotic aspect of a character's alignment is intended to reflect how they will typically behave. It does not suggest that they must act in a particular way. You can see this very clearly when looking at Lawful's opposite, Chaotic. Nobody is suggesting that a Chaotic character must roll a dice before making any decision and adhere to the dice rule, as though they are a believer in absolute chaos.
Lawful/Chaotic indicates a character's general feelings. A Lawful character does not have to stick to the law, particularly as laws and customs are different in different areas. But the lawful character does not believe that their own ideals and personal morality superceed the customs, traditions and laws of those around them either. The chaotic character sees their own moral judgement (or complete lack thereof) as more important.
If you've played Magic: The Gathering then the colours of magic adhere to the alignments somewhat.
White is Lawful Good - its spells maintain order across the battlefield, and provide protection and healing, though can be very destructive. It is Good because it wants things to be better (protected, healed).
Black is Lawful Evil - It is evil because its spells are generally destructive by melting or corrupting things, mentally intrusive (discards), and spread contagions (Pox) etc. but there is no outright chaos and it mirrors white in some ways, hence lawful.
Red is Chaotic Evil - its spells are erratic, like to involve coin flips and often have unpredictable results. There is no subtlety to red, and all it seeks is destruction, hence evil.
Blue is True Neutral - it likes to say "No." But as a Neutral, it is content to maintain the status quo.
Green is Neutral Good - there is no attempt to maintain any order, only to grow the biggest garden it can. But green also focuses on boons and healing, hence good.
While i agree with this take a lot more, I would like to believe that in some situations a lawful character would 100% break the laws if they believed them to be unjust. Order is important, but a corrupt order is worse then pure chaos. Like i'm imagining a kingdom where because the lord owns the land, and the peasant works and lives on that land, the lord basically owns the peasant and is legally allowed to do with them as they see fit up to a certain point "i can't kill you for simply existing, but i can sure a shit can have you beaten daily because i don't like the color of your hair/the shape of your nose/etc..."
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This. A creative player will find a way to keep their evil PC a tolerable part of the group. My character is very much the story of Wicked. Are evil people bad from day one, or does circumstance and perception drive them to be the ills of the world? Either my character will have one heck of a redemption arc, or will be about as terrible as our BBEG. But along the way, he's a very useful part of the group, and drives the story in a positive direction. Literature is filled with such characters.
Right.
The thing is, you know, as a player, that it will NOT work to have an evil character who is trying to do things like PVP-Mind control the party or execute innocent people right in front of the lawful good cleric. So don't make up a character who would do that.
It constantly amazes me how players act like their character was somehow foisted on them by a higher power. YOU make up the character, in all its details. YOU can decide to make someone like Judge, on Chain of Acheron, who can cooperate with a non-evil party, or someone who goes around trying to kill his own friends.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
There's a difference here between a character for whom "The ends justifies the means" and "I am evil."
Here's a more complex look at how I see alignments breaking down in this situation:
Lawful Good: Our LG character chooses to help the village. They approach the nobles and try to explain it to them. If that fails, they will attempt to find a legal recourse that means that the nobles cannot legally take the villagers' food. Her ideal resolution is that she discovers that the woodland is actually private village land, and the nobles cannot stop the village hunting and gathering there, or take their food. If the nobles break the law, she will take up arms against them.
Neutral Good: Our NG character wants to help the villagers however they have to, but they don't expect the nobles to stick to the law. They go ask the nobles to stop taking the villager's food, threatening them with force if necessary. Their ideal solution is that the nobles see reason.
Chaotic Good: Our CG character is Robin Hood. He goes and steals the villager's food back, kills the brutish overseer who stole it, and leaves his head as a warning.
Lawful Neutral: Our LN character looks over the law codes of the area to see what the rules state, and then insists that everyone follows them, regardless of the outcome. They are more concerned with maintaining order than anything else.
True Neutral: This character doesn't really care one way or the other. If people starve, they should sort it out themselves.
Chaotic Neutral: This character doesn't really care about right, wrong, law or crime. They probably got distracted by a butterfly, but they do like apple pie and will go rob those from the nobles if they think there's one to be found.
Lawful Evil: The LE player finds out that legally, the nobles are in the right and the law says that they can take the food. However, in researching it they discover that there is common land that is exempt from this rule. They accept a payment from the nobles not to tell the villagers.
Neutral Evil: The NE player is motivated by money principally. They will side with whichever side pays them the most. They will willingly raid the manor, but if they discover the nobles gold they may well abandon their food-recovery mission halfway. They will equally act as an enforcer for the nobles, and take the rest of the villagers' food in exchange for payment.
Chaotic Evil: The CE player doesn't care about anyone else's goals. They consider themselves beyond right and wrong, and their only moral compass is set to how they feel at any given moment. At night they kill the village headman for his gold chain of office, try to sell it to the nobles, see the nobles gold chain of office is better and kill them for good measure, walking off with everyone's loot.
I need to see if i can find a DM willing to let me run a "evil" character. Who is basically just a good guy who's life goal is to do something that most people would find "distasteful" or "evil". So basically not evil, so much as a fundamental disagreement with religious beliefs about the sanctity of death.
I think the main issue here is the alignment system, it is the one thing I have thrown out in my games, the idea that a good person can’t ever do anything evil without a change of alignment, or that an evil person can’t do something inherently good. My good players sometimes use torture and murder people, but they are doing it for good reasons.
This means that an evil character can exist with a good party and even let them know, they choose to turn a blind eye because he isn’t doing obviously evil stuff in front of them, isn’t trying to steal from them because the evil character understands that there survival and ability to get the thing done that needs doing relies on this group and them staying part of it.
I agree with some of this except for the last part, I played an openly evil character in a campaign, I actually met the party and told them I was from hell and wanted to help them overcome the same bad guy. This then led to me becoming part of the party longer term because I was gaining from learning about the material plane in order to gain more influence in hell. I “encouraged” some NPCs to sell their souls, but focussed on those who where morally ambiguous using the argument you can’t con an honest John with the party. I actually saved a women and her children and protected them risking my own life, in part because it would ingratiate me more with the party but also because in that moment I didn’t want to see innocents suffer, I played it off as the children where potential souls to be bought in the future but my DM understood that my character was deeper then just an evil guy.
In another campaign my character shifted from lawful good to plain up evil, we where trapped in a Groundhog Day campaign that lasted 2 years real time, my character as they approached level 8-9 realised that the longer this day continued the more I would continue to learn so started subtly, secretly doing things to stop the party ending it. I also used the fact that the day reset every day to learn, the darkest moment came when I told my DM I was spending a day on my own, kidnapped the pregnant bartender and told the DM I cast sleep, and then I look to see what babies look like on the inside. At that point I became proper evil, the campaign stopped because the players moved away but I had agreed with the DM that I would either become a bbeg npc, or as I approached level 20 would then feel that I was ready to escape the day and take all I had learnt to the world outside.
A lot of this depends on what you think various alignments mean. In general the requirement for the PCs getting along is that their goals and methods aren't incompatible, at which point what does it mean that the PC is evil?
This is a perfect example of what I was describing.
You had your PC mutilate an innocent NPC. At that point, your choice of gameplay would have forced the other players to constantly pretend that they didn't know who and what your character was: you had made yourself a villain as bad as any BBEG, and then forced the other players to pretend they don't know. You as the evil-PC player get to carry on being all dark and mysterious and gross, and the others are forced to play like your stooges. I'd have quit the campaign at that point if it hadn't just happened to end by massive coincidence at the same time.
This isn't cool, and I would seriously advise any DMs to avoid enabling this kind of gameplay. I'd also make it really clear that the evil act you're describing in the post isn't an acceptable kind of act to play in a social game. Either you're playing it for shock value, and the other players will mind, or nobody in the group is grossed out, in which case you should find a new group anyway.
Alignment discussions tend to run for a lot of pages. The way I look at them is that each person has a mindset and only the wisest really are ever able to understand that other people think differently. They expect everyone to think and act as they do, and they will try and make others think and do as they do. Alignments are active things, not passive.
When someone doesn't do things that a character likes, they will do something about it. Someone breaks the rules around a Lawful, they're going to use the system to punish them. If they don't have the authority themselves, they'll go get someone else to do it. Evil ones will want to see them hurt or killed, Good ones will try to use the system to help them. They do the same around a Chaotic, Good ones will help them get away with it. Evil ones will probably hurt or kill them on the spot no matter what the law says. (remember that being Chaotic doesn't mean stupid or random, they can decide how they go about doing things and Evil ones will make sure that they get away with whatever it is they do themselves.) Chaotic Neutrals won't care at all unless they can take advantage of the situation.
Evil is never about Greed. That's a Neutral thing. You're not worried about anyone else but yourself. It's not Good, but it's not really Evil either. The lust for Power is a Lawful thing. If the End Justifies the Means, that's classic to the way a Chaotic thinks.
If you want to be Evil, a Lawful Evil will need someone with high enough authority to give them orders and they will obey them to the letter most likely, but they need to be pretty specific about things like what they can and cannot do to the party and what they can and cannot do to help them achieve their goals. Remember that a Lawful Evil is full of malice, and the want to hurt or kill the others, so they will twist their orders in any way they can to get someone hurt or killed. Anyone who steps out of line is really likely to get punished somehow. As people have commented, it's probably easiest to work with a Lawful Evil. At least they are honorable in their twisted kind of way. They can be dealt with.
Neutral Evils don't really care about rules and just want things to hurt or die. Whatever it is that's got them into the party, it's got to be enormously strong or they're going to turn on the party. They could have the same parents as one of the players, and even Evil people can love someone. Just watch out, because they expect other people to think like they do, they won't understand kindness at all, they expect that the people around them will be plotting against them so they will be confused at best and the goal the party is trying to reach will need to be very clear.
Chaotic Evil probably isn't going to work. Not unless everyone is very experienced and prepared to deal with PvP. It might be done, if the party was primarily Chaotic, and the cause was rebellion, or getting someone out of prison, but even then, the Evil one is going to want to leave a litter of corpses in their wake, and the party would have to be cool with it. If they were fighting things they knew to be Evil, they'd regret all the deaths, but might consider that the Evil guys had it coming.
As a final note, remember always that Alignment isn't a straitjacket. People do things out of character all the time, but usually they don't stay that way for all that long. It is also true that even the worst people can have quirks. A Chaotic Evil might just love babies, and won't harm a hair on their heads, and they will react violently against anyone else who tries to hurt a baby or maybe even a young child. Any Evil can be like that, it's just a matter of how they react if someone else doesn't do the same things they do. Kick a child, a Lawful Evil will certainly see you punished somehow, but they'll need to find a way to use the system to do it. A Neutral Evil is may or may not kill you at once, but if they can find any way to benefit from your death, you're gonna die. If you see someone you know to be Evil doing something nice, whatever you do, don't mess with whatever it is they're being nice to.
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Hm. I feel there's a problem here... though it's correct to note that 'what does alignment mean in your campaign' is key to the answer to this question.
The other players had no idea, it actually came from me not being able to make a session, because of the nature of the campaign they went off and did a thing and the dm said I was doing something else. We then ran a one on one session and I made that final step to being evil and the DM loved it because it made perfect sense.
But after when I told the players they loved it to, it was absolutely the next step my character would have made. This was an insecure wizard who acted like he was better then he was and was driven to prove himself. The moment we realised it was a groundhog campaign and the characters realised that death was reset every day, my character slowly changed. First becoming more confident and less afraid of death, and then becoming reckless, putting other characters in danger. One character got a disease that we couldn’t cure (by this point we had learnt how to avoid the daily resets) so I killed him, because it made sense and to see if the disease was gone, he came back as expected the same (next) morning cured we had a moment in game and I allowed him to kill me in return, but the characters never got wind of the fact I had ulterior motives and did not want the day to carry on. I didn’t create the character aiming him to turn evil, but I did create a fully formed character with a personality and flaws which, under those specific circumstances, made him become evil in a very slow, natural way. I didn’t throw it in my other players faces, mainly because we very much play secrets stay secret and try and ensure that players only know as much as the characters when it comes to backstory.
I read the room and understood the players and dm who all loved the journey I took my character down. That barmaid, came back to life with baby in her and when the game ended the DM explained to cancel the Groundhog Day she actually would have had to have died with her baby anyway so I had stumbled randomly on something that would have reset the day. He purposely created a campaign with some very interesting moral questions, like what if you never truly die. All the players characters had moments having to deal with this. It is amazing what impact immortality can have on a characters actions.
Would I do that at every table, of course not, but assuming every table would hate something because you wouldnt like it is also wrong. I have played vampire the masquerade with horror fanatics who described every gory feed in detail, or had call of Cthulhu games that genuinely scared and disturbed us. If I or the dm at the time had stopped that behavior those players would have walked away.
What is important us you read the room, and as a dm you stop a player doing something that will upset your table.
I think alignment is one of those things that no 2 DMs or players will ever agree on and both are right and do have no right to say someone else is doing it wrong, I like your approach to it, very different to mine and I don’t think I would use yours but I see the benefits of it. Ideally I think alignment as a concept should have been taken out of DnD ages ago but it is a legacy mechanic that many like and as with all the other rules DMs can just ignore it.
I do think it massively over simplifies a very complicated concept of moral compass and how personal beliefs and goals can impact character behaviour. But it kind if works as a touch point for new players.
I'm partial to the idea that alignment is based off social constructs as well as just general behavior. Like people REALLY dislike when you raise the dead. So a necromancer is seen as evil, even if that person is only doing these things to allow people say their last goodbyes or is using their undead horde to accomplish tasks that are far to risky to use living beings for. For a different example; the local lord's "muscle" is totally lawful good, even though they just beat the old man Wilson within an inch of his life, and took most of his stuff. Old man Wilson hasn't been paying his taxes, so the local lord had to send people to get what he is legally owed. Or maybe they are lawful evil, guess it depends who you ask...
Suppose there is a law against raising the dead. People hate it, and they got a law passed about that. A Lawful Good would be against a Necromancer breaking the law, but might understand if the Necromancer had good intentions and try to find some legal way to deal with that. They might arrest him, or have someone do it, but help them get justice by hiring a lawyer for them or something similar. They could plead his case before whomever it was that passed the law. A Neutral Good would see to it that the law was enforced unless they were able to benefit personally in some way from the Necromancer's actions, and if so, they'd do the same thing as a Lawful Good. A Lawful Evil absolutely find some legal way to help out, and would likely do the same thing as a Lawful Good in the end. A Chaotic of any kind might be delighted to help a Necromancer in breaking the laws. If they saw the Necromancer had good intentions, they would almost absolutely help out. A Chaotic Neutral would only help if there was something in it for them, but they wouldn't stop the Necromancer, and they'd just decide for themselves what they would do based on the situation. A Chaotic Evil would pretty much absolutely help out.
That is, of course something that might depend on other factors. Maybe they also agree about raising the dead, it's a quirk of theirs, that's pretty common. Then none of them of any Alignment would help the Necromancer. If they loved anyone that got raised, they'd probably be outraged. Each person gets to decide, and nobody behaves with perfect consistency. Anyone might make a mistake, or do something Evil as a bad call. They'd probably try to fix things, but they couldn't take it all back.
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If you or DM won't allow your character to "break" alignment now and then without over compensating/punishing the character for it, you and/or your DM are pretty trash at roleplaying. People are not machines that exist and act only within vaguely defined parameters.
That aside; the biggest issue with discussing this is that any way anyone explains their outlook, is that it will almost always come off as trite and BS to anyone else. Like your way of playing those alignments sounds painfully terrible to me, but i'm sure they are how you would best enjoy playing the character yourself and that's 100% fine.
I think you need to understand the history of where alignment came from and how strict the rules made sticking to it in old editions. Geann’s approach is absolutely legit in a world where breaking from alignment turns a god against you, it is also kind of RAW which is how DnD earlier editions worked, if a cleric did anything against alignment or allowed it to happen, their deity would punish and they might lose their access to powers. The rules defined that as being absolute.
As a DM I choose not to play so strict to alignment but the joy of tabletop roleplay games is no 2 DMs have to run the same way and sometimes being forced to obey certain rules can be an interesting change.
that honestly sounds exhausting and terrible. Like i get it with the big stuff, but i'm just imagining an oath to "help the needy/injured" and having to RP wiping EVERY child's nose in EVERY village. Did someone get a splinter? better burn my 3rd level spell slot to heal that RIGHT NOW.
Like how do you enjoy a game where the DM makes you the metaphorical slave of the power tripping noble. Like you know they are power tripping, but TECHNICALLY they aren't breaking any laws so you have to let them continue to abuse everyone of a lower station OR you straight up get cut off at the knee by your micro managing god?
How I play it in my own game is I keep the guidelines I have worked out in mind, I tell the other players what they are before play is started and long before session zero. We might dicuss it during that session, and then I let the players do absolutely anything they like and I don't intervene or punish them in any way.
It's meant to be a roleplaying tool at this point in D&D. I hated when the rules for Alignment actually had game effects. Just a simple hook to help them imagine their character. I don't care at all what they do. That's up to them. All I do is try and help them in the beginning.
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"Lawful" doesn't - and never has - meant that a character obeys the law. That's a bit of a misunderstanding. Lawful means that the creature favours order and regulation, and the Lawful/Neutral/Chaotic aspect of a character's alignment is intended to reflect how they will typically behave. It does not suggest that they must act in a particular way. You can see this very clearly when looking at Lawful's opposite, Chaotic. Nobody is suggesting that a Chaotic character must roll a dice before making any decision and adhere to the dice rule, as though they are a believer in absolute chaos.
Lawful/Chaotic indicates a character's general feelings. A Lawful character does not have to stick to the law, particularly as laws and customs are different in different areas. But the lawful character does not believe that their own ideals and personal morality superceed the customs, traditions and laws of those around them either. The chaotic character sees their own moral judgement (or complete lack thereof) as more important.
If you've played Magic: The Gathering then the colours of magic adhere to the alignments somewhat.
While i agree with this take a lot more, I would like to believe that in some situations a lawful character would 100% break the laws if they believed them to be unjust. Order is important, but a corrupt order is worse then pure chaos. Like i'm imagining a kingdom where because the lord owns the land, and the peasant works and lives on that land, the lord basically owns the peasant and is legally allowed to do with them as they see fit up to a certain point "i can't kill you for simply existing, but i can sure a shit can have you beaten daily because i don't like the color of your hair/the shape of your nose/etc..."