Debate on Alignment
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There are extremes of both sides, and what to one person might look like a line down the middle, might to another look like the character is on one side of the fence - good or evil. I've (tried) to play from saintly good to downright scummy evil, and been a few places in between.
Depending on your character and his or her skills you can get away with just about anything as an evil character, especially if they know when to run. As a good character you might find yourself facing more danger - standing up to the big scary demon, giving his or her life for another nomatter how low on the social scale the person might be. Considering what might happen if they do thus, and of course the golden oldy of guilt and redemption.
Paladin good is a hard good to play correctly. I tried for a little while but quickly found myself in a very hard spot. But so is psychotic knifey Hin murderer, difficult. But both of them in the end are very interesting, and worth trying out for yourself.
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@967a4a0aec=Chrystoph:
I would like to know several things about the above situation.
Was there a war on or was the enemy army moving against your allegience (army, town, nation, etc)?
If not, I can easily see how this would be an evil act.
If so, I would like to know where this stops being an act of war, which is not, in and of itself, normally considered evil, and becomes something else. I conceed the fact that atrocities such as butchering the the livestock or the populace are both crimes and evil, but they are not the primary nature of acts of war.
Is it the fact that you hired an Assassin that did it, or the fact that the killing was not in combat, or was it some other factor?
As the character is now retired, and the events long past, I'll go ahead and give the details on this, leaving out other PCs who were involved. This was back in the days before I was a DM, or even a PG.
There was a powerful orc army nearby, which had shown itself to be hostile, and we were at war with them. There were thousands of them, and the thought was that removing their leader would cause disarray in their ranks, and at least buy us time, if not seriously weaken them.
My PC, though strongly Lawful Good, was very good at ferreting out information, and knew a way to contact a (PC) assassin affiliated with an evil temple. He offered this information to his superiors, who instructed him to contact the assassin and price out the job. Doing so entailed going to the evil temple, meeting with the assassin, offering the job and negotiating a price. The negotiations included a demand for human sacrifice, and while that ended up not being part of the final agreed-on price, various poisons and items which would obviously be put to evil use, were. While we ended up not actually hiring the assassin, the contemplation of such and doing what was done in determining what the terms would be, was an evil act.
There was no DM present at the negotiations, so I contacted one afterwards, explained the details of the situation, and took a (fairly significant) whack with the evil points stick.
[Edit: I will note here, that the RP was great on all sides during this process, and as I said in the post linked in the original post in this thread, I didn't get evil points here because I'd RPed badly or because a DM didn't like me - they were part of the development of the character. I contacted the DM after the fact because I as a player knew that what the PC had done merited some sort of reaction. It was one of the many events that shaped the character.]
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Playing good character is hard,making personal sacrifice accepting some of the insults thrown against you. Example my character Caric who spends most of his coins on potions to heal him self while at the front providing his skills for groups of younger adventurers who would'nt make it other wise and not asking more then his share,ofthen ending up under the needed coins to buy back his supplies.
SOme times he ends up with surplus of coins but that rarely lasts as Caric will soon be generous to a new adventurer and help that one get a piece of equipment.
And if thats not enough Caric helps the economie spnding good coins on fancy food just to keep it going,would be easy to go hunt and cook meats and get loads of rations real cheap but instead he spends his hard earned coins on extravagant food makes new outfits once in a while as no one should be wearing the same clothes for ever makes generous donations to those in need. would go a great lenght to help some one not evil to get out of troubles and still would ponder about helping an evil person if that one would show potiential goodness.all that to say it should always be easier to make the lazy choice and do wrong unless your character lives for his ideals.
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All right! Good versus evil is now covered! How about chaos versus law?
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Yeah, wish it was something more like the Palladium system…
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I sometimes wish that the allignment system used completely disconnected names… like having 'Lawful Good' be called instead 'Hamster Cupcake'... as while it might be less obvious it might get rid of some of this confusion.
Alignment in D&D is how the divine system of the universe set up by Ao files and rates your character. It's perfectly fine to disagree with this system! Many characters with the alignment of Evil or Neutral can make strong logical cases why the people with Good alignments are worse than they.
But, alignment is not about what is ultimately 'right' in the end, it is about how the current management of the universe defines and categorizes people and acts. And under their rules some acts (poisoning, etc) always get sorted under Evil regardless of motivations.
Other times its a bit more murky. WRT to the question that started this thread, if you pay a guy gold to slip in and stab an enemy general to death in his sleep, the gods are probably going to view that as assassination. If you command your champion to bring you the head of the enemy general, and he and his boon companions slip through the camp, burst into the tent, and having a fierce duel before slaying him and escaping, the gods are probably going to view that as a heroic mission against the odds. The substance is pretty much the same but the forms are different.
A good rule of thumb:
*If something is described as Evil (spell descriptor, special mention of it like poison, etc) then assume it will get evil points if used.
*If something 'feels' evil, assume you are risking evil points if you do it.
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i'm very against any automation of alignment points. not sure if this is still the case, but it used to be that you would get them for killing a PC. This was also a time when faction issues were as common as hins at a free picnic.
so, you can imagine… you log in, walk through the Boarshead, every NPC attacks you, you defend yourself (not even willingly, via the AI) and you end up with 10 evil points.
then you have to plead your case when there were no witnesses, etc.
Lets keep it a human decision... adding automation to something like this is just asking for problems.
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@7ca5c65e6e=rei_jin:
Being good should be HARD. It should be hard to earn a good alignment, and easy to lose.
Agree 100% there. Regardless of different views on the alignment system, I hope this is one that is fundamentally agreed upon.
On the idea of donating gold to the temple for good points, that should never be automated. For evil acts, motivation doesn't matter (or at least matters a whole lot less). For good acts, motivation ALWAYS matters. A Lawful Evil politician would donate gold to the temple to appear pious in order to gain religious votes, perhaps. Further no amount of gold simply counters a truly evil act.
Automated alignment hits, if used at all, should always be of the straying from good alignment, never towards imo. If it's ruled on the server that poison use is evil, let it be auto evil points. I'm not necessarily a proponent of the idea, but I'd be okay with it. Just not the other end, because then all you'd have to do is donate 'x' gold for every time you used poison, or every innocent you killed, etc. to balance the scales.
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Alignment discussions on the internet can go for hundreds of pages and never be truly resolved, because a fair bit of it is based on opinion, not on solid facts.
There's no evil-o-meter for us to compare actions against.
From what I remember, using Sin Berries previously gave you evil points, but it doesn't anymore. Killing kobold eggs doesn't give you evil points, but it probably should. Giving coin to the temple of the triad doesn't give you good points (from what I've seen, anyway) but it probably should.
The big question is this… is honourable and good the same thing, or are they different? It might not be honourable to use poison, but it's not evil either, unless you subscribe to D&D morality. The main reason it has been considered evil by the game producers is that it is the unseen killer... much in the same way that an assassin is. And if killing someone when they have no idea that you're there is evil, then most of the rogues on the server should be evil. Not to mention many of the spellcasters who use invisibility.
It seems like some things are evil because they are evil, and other things are not for no specific definable reason. And that's not a crack at the DMs, that's a comment on the stupidity of the D&D alignment system.
Being good should be HARD. It should be hard to earn a good alignment, and easy to lose.
I started Marie off as Lawful Neutral, but have been playing her as Lawful Good pretty constantly... so far I've earnt 16 good points and 1 evil point. It's been a hard slog to get as far as I have, and I'm still Lawful Neutral. Maybe one day I'll earn that good alignment.
And as much as the slow transition to that much wanted good alignment is for me, I think it's right that it takes me time to earn. No matter how good a character seems, being a truly good person is a life long commitment made up of struggles and hardship.
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Just curious - from the dm perspective - what's the ratio of good to evil points that are handed out? And is that a direct result of the above policy combined with the fact that most pc's on Narf are good to begin with ?
I'm betting it's at least 3:1 - evil:good. That's probably low.
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So if I kick a baby hin do I get more evil points than if I kick a baby drow? Just because one less is stereotypically less evil than the other? Or is it the same?
If I go out and kill all the orcs in the Plains for their gold and armor, is it more evil than running through a town and killing the guards because I think they insulted me? At least for killing the guards I'd have a reason, and pride to defend.. the orcs is a simple act of murder for greed.
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I would actually prefer the way NWN2 handled the alignment shifts.
If I remember correctly, they had breaking points. That means someone shifting from 100 good to 74 and thus becoming neutral would immediatly be set to 50 points.
Which basically says: They have done enough non-good things that they are for now neutral.
Atonement is then a more sensible matter early on, instead of a 'Oh, I've earned 2 points of evil, let's see, I have to reearn 1 to be good again.'
It's a more lengthy process to restore a previous alignment - it also makes the slippery slope down to evil a lot more slippery…
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The way it works (the way we apply it on Narfell at the very least, I believe its based on PnP), is that the more at one end of the spectrum you are, the easier it is to earn the opposite kind of points. So, for example, a paladin who kills somebody in cold blood with their back turned to them will gain many more evil points than say a fully evil blackguard committing the same act, conversely a Blackguard who saves a damsel in distress purely to save her, would gain many more good points than a fully good paladin who accomplishes the same feat.
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you are definitely making sense… but I always have a hard time understanding the scale...
if you repeatedly do something evil, something worth (for example) 1 evil point... you are a repeat offender... but if you do it 50 times you are as evil as they come.
does one evil (or good) according to their point total? Or do their points keep mounting and mounting, despite consistency?
Its a hard question to ask. Another way of asking:
As a DM, do you look at a PC's actions, then look at their evil points, and ask "hmm, according to that kitten they just kicked, they should be at a "75" on the scale, let me give them a few."
or, do you see someone kick a kitten, and say "kicking a kitten is worth 3 evil points." and not be concerned with their current alignment points?
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The reason this particular rule should probably (in my opinion) be applied is for one main reason; in DnD evil is much more real and less ambiguous than in real life. This is represented in a number of ways. The most obvious example being that there are spells and abilities capable of detecting evil.
My interpretation of why specific acts, regardless of reasons or justifications, are inherrently evil is that, because evil is such a nigh-tangible force in DnD, performing evil acts leaves an impression on your character. This is why evil points exist, IE you are not actually turned evil just for doing one of these things, rather doing one of them makes you more likely to consider such acts again in the future (i.e. a slippery slope sort of scenario), which I think is well represented by the point-scale. Am I making sense?
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@74111d8ead=MexicanCookie:
Sounds like a grey area to me.
Assaulting the command post to kill or capture the leadership to end the war could be considered good.
Assaulting the command post to kill the leadership because you don't like them could be considered evil.
It's all dependent on PC motivation. If things like this come up for your PC discuss it with the DM team. You can also help by keeping a journal of your PC's thoughts (which I see you've already started
) so the DMs can understand the motivation more clearly if things are complicated.It's not only motivation. Motivation definitely factors in but even still… I played a character once willing to murder and impose his will on others for a perceived greater good. Let a few die to save the many kind of thing. He was easily marching down the evil path, but it doesn't matter that in his mind it was the only way to save the land in the long run. To stand idly by and allow the few to make the wrong decision and doom countless lives was intolerable. Killing one person would save thousands upon thousands later, yet does that make him good? I'd argue due to PC intent it isn't evil, perhaps, but most assuredly not good.
Sometimes the act, no matter how well intentioned, is most assuredly not good, and other times, again no matter how well intentioned, still quite evil. Killing a baby because a prophecy says they will grow up to one day destroy the world or some such would still be quite evil.
DnD alignments are always a pain, because there are so many intepretations. I've always preferred the absolute path and see evil and good as extremes with the vast majority floating neutral, kind of like 4th edition has done. Still, despite all the debates and discussions on the subject, the makers of DnD still have not weighed in with an absolute guide because it will always be impossible to define every possible action, motivation, and outcome.
Not a DM or anything, just my two cents from playing DnD forever... feels old. Ultimately it comes down to DMs and as has been suggested, keeping a log of actions and your motivation is definitely helpful, though it probably will never guarantee a get-out-of-evil-points-free card.
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@0cce322f97:
In the forgotten realms, it is an inherrently evil act, no matter how terrible the person you are killing may be or what the justification is. Now, you may still be lauded as a hero if you killed some FR version of Hitler via assassination, but you'd still pick up those evil points afterwards.
it seems to me that this is something that we, as a community, should be a bit more flexible with. We surely dont stick to all other D&D rules, as written. Why would we have to stick to this as the absolute rule if we all know there are gray areas?
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One issue that sometimes irks people about D&D alignment is that it's a very absolute thing in the game. Intention doesn't have to matter, just the action itself.
I know it irks me often…
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Sounds like a grey area to me.
Assaulting the command post to kill or capture the leadership to end the war could be considered good.
Assaulting the command post to kill the leadership because you don't like them could be considered evil.
It's all dependent on PC motivation. If things like this come up for your PC discuss it with the DM team. You can also help by keeping a journal of your PC's thoughts (which I see you've already started
) so the DMs can understand the motivation more clearly if things are complicated.
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That's a question that's best answered on a case by case basis really, since individual factors of each case should give a reasonably clear indication of whether something qualifies as assassination or not.
Edit: Additonally, as some folks above have alluded to, real world morality does not always equate with forgotten realms concepts of evil. For instance taking Dwin's example there, if I paid somebody to assassinate Hitler in the real world, swell. In the forgotten realms, it is an inherrently evil act, no matter how terrible the person you are killing may be or what the justification is. Now, you may still be lauded as a hero if you killed some FR version of Hitler via assassination, but you'd still pick up those evil points afterwards.
