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I might soon find myself in the situation where one someone is playing an evil character is a group of good characters. The problem I have with this is I can't wrap my head around good and evil characters hanging out.
Fundamentally, it comes down to the fact that someone will come to the party asking them to do some difficult task for little to no reward. And the good guys will do it. But the evil one, in my mind, would think this was stupid. Why would he/she go along?
It's possible for me to come up with a plot in which the characters are thrown together. The current story I'm running would be perfect for that, but why would these people stick together after?
You guys ever have this problem?
Why do you help your friends, even when they do something stupid ?
Because they are your friends.
Maybe the Evil guy likes/loves the Good PCs, or maybe he feels that they "belong" to him and thus he has to protect them (and tag along). Or maybe he feels that he owes them a debt (for example if they saved his life).
An Evil person will hurt and even kill innocent people for fun and profit. But that does not mean that he does so all the time, nor that he is blatant about it.
And though Evil and Good do exist (even to the divine extremes) in PFRPG, PCs have the incredible ability of free will that allows them to choose their alignment and even to change it over time.
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reelanceEvilGenius wrote:
Why would an evil character be in a primarily good party? Why would a good party put up with an evil character?
Evil has every reason to prefer being in a good party. Sneaking, cheating, backstabbing, and taking advantage of other people is great... but only when you're doing it to someone else, NOT when they're doing it to you. Sure, you don't get to take the last 3 copper the widow has in her coin purse (at least when anyone is looking) , but on the plus side your party won't slit your throat in your sleep for your +2 dagger collection. So.. you know.. you come out ahead.
Actually, nothing prevents Good characters from doing any of the above as long as they maintain a respect for life, especially innocent ones. Too bad for the Evil guy that he does not exactly classify as innocent.
How do things not eventually come to a head? Someone mentioned the party that wants to stop an evil wizard while he's thinking the wizard is in his chair. When the wizard's defeated, the party's not just going to let you keep the evil macguffin.
Or what if some theif robs a bank? Good guys want to give the money back, bad guy wants to keep it. Does the evil one just say nothing? Does he try to subvert everyone elses wishes and steal it?
You're thinking too blatant and short term. Think longer term and subtle. Perhaps he lets the evil MacGuffin and money go... for now. Perhaps he marks the MacGuffin to make it easier to find later.
He might never get to the "later", but... he might.
His goal: self enrichment and power. But that doesn't mean he has no concept of delayed gratification. It might go "two steps forward, one back", but he's getting more wealth than just mere money through returning the bank's gold. He's getting reputation. What's worse: a villain everyone knows is bad so a hero will inevitably come after him, or a villain who everyone knows is good because of all he's done for the community and will defend him against wandering thu-er, I mean, "adventurers"?
EDIT: Sorry, had to step out for moment.
To clarify further, what you're wondering is about impulse control. Many people avoid doing things not because they think they're wrong in any way, but because they fear getting caught (and know others don't like it). Is there a functional difference between the actions of a lawful good paladin who returns the stolen bank money because of a sense of duty, justice, and what's "right" and a lawful evil wizard who returns the bank money because somehow, somewhere, somebody will be able to trace the money to him and send "heroes" after him or worse - he'll lose his reputation (though, boy, would he ever like to slit that banker's throat and take his stuff)?
No, there is no functional difference between their actions. In the people behind the actions, however...
In the former, the person is genuinely good and kind. In latter, however, the man is a narcissistic and paranoid: he might loath that someone has more money than he does, but that doesn't mean he'll act on that loathing as, heav- er, hell forbid he lose something so precious as his reputation. He longs to be adored by others, even if he doesn't deserve it, so he pretends that he does and slowly gains power, wealth, and the like anyway. One of the two people described is being good. One is being the opposite of that. They just happen to be taking the same actions.
With a paranoid evil person obsessed with his reputation, you can pretty much have an evil person do most anything with a good party and have a perfectly built-in justification for why they'd keep doing it.
You, however, seem to be describing an over-the-top blatant villain (not cartoony, per se, but still about as subtle as a mack truck in a china shop). You presume that there will be a point at which the evil character will act on his inner purposes to the contrary of the party. And perhaps one day he will. But perhaps that day is beyond the bounds of your campaign.
The major problem I can see, is if your player has the same thought-pattern you do about evil people - in which case it is very likely that they will do something stupid to mess things up and you should probably encourage them to avoid it.
EDIT 2:
RE: Thief-and-money-keeping - really it doesn't take an evil person to want to keep the money from a bank robbery... it takes a chaotic person. Who cares who the original money belonged to before it belonged to this jerk-faced thief? You deprived the world of a murderous villain: now to the well-earned spoils! Forget about "decorum" and "laws"! Point-in-fact, a lawful evil person may well be more likely to return the money than a chaotic good person (unless there was some seriously necessary reason for the good of all that said money end up at the bank, like it was the work of a charity drive or something... even then the CG might skim a few coins, because, after all, they're the ones protecting the people and/or are homeless themselves and/or <insert other excuse here>...)
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How do things not eventually come to a head? Someone mentioned the party that wants to stop an evil wizard while he's thinking the wizard is in his chair. When the wizard's defeated, the party's not just going to let you keep the evil macguffin.
Or what if some theif robs a bank? Good guys want to give the money back, bad guy wants to keep it. Does the evil one just say nothing? Does he try to subvert everyone elses wishes and steal it?
Again, these are the issues--especially as, if I understand it correctly, the Evil character is not some long-time chum/friend/family member of the group. He's just joined, correct? He's new?
Why let him in? Once he's in, why let him commit his "evil" acts? Does Good have to tolerate Evil just to have a player in the party?
What if you decide to stop him, and it comes to blows? Is that worth it?
Anecdote:
In a home game, we had a rogue who, at night, would sneak out into the town and steal and burglarize shops.
At first, no one noticed. Eventually, we did. We told the thief to knock it off before we all get in trouble. The thief continued and was eventually caught by the guardsmen of a noble's house while in mid-theft.
Being "evil" he "ratted us out" and claimed that we had been paying him to go steal from the noble, and the townsfolk, and he essentially cut a deal with the noble to capture all of the "culprits" behind the "scheme" which didn't exist.
The short of it is, the rogue rejoined the party, led us into a trap, and we ended up ambushed by the noble's guards and hired henchmen. Half the party died, the other half was imprisoned, and the rogue vanished.
Now, this may not happen with every group--but, there's no reason that it cannot happen. There are no restrictions on an evil character playing up or actually being evil--especially when its's decidedly in his best interests to do so.
Now, you may all have wonderful examples of evil characters not being Evil, and I don't doubt they're true, but, the flip side is that there's nothing stopping them from "playing true to who they are" once the chips are really down and it's his skin or yours.
So, maybe evil and good characters are all able to work together in some circumstances, or maybe due to an at-the-table meta-agreement the character won't "misbehave", but that's not really keeping "in character" either. He's evil in Alignment, but not in action--again, I don't mean he has to be "evil" in every action, but in this case, not in any action in order to play with the party--so again, why is he playing an "evil" character?
But, back to Waingro, if you're putting your life in their hands, and the "evil" character takes advantage of the situation, then you're not in control of the outcome. (Unless you meta-game it so the Evil character is not...evil...)
If I had been playing the thief, I would have rejoined the party, and informed them that I had been caught (while going about my lawful business) by this evil nobleman. Oh yea, I know he has a good reputation, but the man's guards just yanked me off the street and threatened my life if I didn't help him in his quest to capture the party. He believes that these good characters are a thorn in his side--and he has been behind all the evil we've been rooting out.
I told him that I would, and he let me go. And now I am telling you so that we can ambush the ambushers and give him his just desserts. Are you with me?
There are a lot of scenarios that can come into play here; the 'evil' character does not have to automatically betray the party and lead them into an ambush--hightailing it safety while his companions suffer a total party kill. That is just one.
Another might be sneaking back into the noble's house and slitting his throat while he sleeps. Problem solved.
And it was a really stupid noble that let the thief go free in the first place, trusting him to deliver the party into his hands. Did the thief has a geas placed on him? He could have used that as proof of the perfidy of the noble, if so. Was he charm or dominated? Then he isn't acting of his free will and the DM is to be blamed.
Master Arminas
I'm with Arminas on this one: the thief wasn't very wise and the player not terribly clever with his decisions. In that case the evil rogue should really have avoided bringing the party into a trap because, once they're dead (especially since the rogue split making himself look guilty) the truth is more easily obtained. That's what speak with dead is for. Besides, if he destroyed the noble, he'd have access to the nobles riches by default, and that's something that any evil rogue worth his salt would want. Nah, in that case, the player's just being a jerk (intentionally or not).
THAT SAID: that's easy enough to have happen if your player has the same short-sighted short-term views of evil as others here seem to have. You'll want to work with him very carefully and make sure that he knows in advance that you may wish to speak with him out of character to find good in-character ways to continue without harming the party dynamic. Metagaming is actually a great thing when its used to make a better story and for everyone to have more fun over-all. This is one of the best uses for it, bypassing the whole "it's what my character would do" argument.
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I'm with Arminas on this one: the thief wasn't very wise and the player not terribly clever with his decisions.
THAT SAID: that's easy enough to have happen if your player has the same short-sighted short-term views of evil as others here seem to have. You'll want to work with him very carefully and make sure that he knows in advance that you may wish to speak with him out of character to find good in-character ways to continue without harming the party dynamic. Metagaming is actually a great thing when its used to make a better story and for everyone to have more fun over-all. This is one of the best uses for it, bypassing the whole "it's what my character would do" argument.
And that's why I posted it here--I think someone might be able to play an evil character with the intervention, "help", and/or consent of the party and GM (meta-gaming), BUT there's still no guarantee on what will happen. If the OP thinks things will just run their course and nothing bad can happen, that's not always the case.
The player might play it "smart", or he may not--or maybe he doesn't know how to play it smart, or doesn't think things through "far enough".
Remember, it's not just how the character would act, it's a matter of what the Player does under "pressure" and what he thinks his character would do--and in that meta and in-game sense, there's a lot of room for mistakes and/or actions that harm the party.
As to Arminas' questions:
I don't know, but I don't think he was acting under compulsion of any kind--other than the player thought he was "playing his character". I don't know if he was threatened, or bribed, or promised or what motivated him in character, and I don't know why/how the player chose to "extract" his character from that situation by throwing all of us under the bus.
We (the rest of the party) were actually off getting dinner since this was the "routine" once the rogue started his nightly burglaries. Since it only involved the GM and the player, we were "off camera" and usually took that time to (physically) leave and go take a break for the 20-30-40 minutes it took for the side jaunt to resolve itself.
So, all I know is the in-character unraveling of it all as it unfolded, and the rather heated player-to-player squabbling after the whole mess came to an end--which was the end of the session (never having gotten where we were supposed to be going), the campaign (ditto), and the player group (too many feelings were hurt, too many people--me included--were too pissed off at the player and at the way the GM handled the whole thing).
So, it was a mess...and I think it, or something like it, can happen if the whole thing isn't tightly contained/constrained/restrained--but then we're back to limiting the actions of an Evil character to be...not evil...and/or trusting in the player to "know how to play" Evil without being evil to the entire party...
Not certain I would qualify framing the noble as an 'evil' villan, leading the party to ambush him and his guards, killing him, and looting his home would quality as 'not evil'. It would be a lot less chaotic than what your betrayer thief did, but no less evil.
Master Arminas
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Not certain I would qualify framing the noble as an 'evil' villan, leading the party to ambush him and his guards, killing him, and looting his home would quality as 'not evil'. It would be a lot less chaotic than what your betrayer thief did, but no less evil.
Master Arminas
I don't think the Noble was evil at all--or at least not that we ever knew. We'd met most of the nobles at a dinner party, and that's probably where the thief got the idea to start robbing them.
But, to me, the Noble was simply defending his house and property from the thief in the night who was attempting to steal anything of value.
And, even in the extension of the Noble's actions against the party, I think the Noble hired the henchmen and sent his guards out to capture a "band of thieves" in his mind--as that's what we were to him.
So, while this is all beyond what was probably ever statted out by the GM, the Noble may well have been LG for all I know, and felt it was his duty to capture/kill/arrest the wrong-doers who had invaded his home and were the cause of multiple thefts, break-ins, and robberies...
The party definitely would never have opposed the Noble's claim to justice over the affront of the theft(s), and probably would have let the thief hang for his crimes if it'd ever gotten to that point.
But...it didn't...
How do things not eventually come to a head? Someone mentioned the party that wants to stop an evil wizard while he's thinking the wizard is in his chair. When the wizard's defeated, the party's not just going to let you keep the evil macguffin.
Or what if some theif robs a bank? Good guys want to give the money back, bad guy wants to keep it. Does the evil one just say nothing? Does he try to subvert everyone elses wishes and steal it?
This to me is an odd question. People tend to act in their own self interest. If I had in my life to determine my alignment based off of the Pathfinder alignment scale I would be most likely chaotic evil. By your definition I should be robbing banks, stabbing people and mugging people downtown left and right. I do not do these things not because of some vaunted sense of right and wrong, but because it is not within my own self interest.
If I were to do these things on a long enough given timeline I would be either caught by the proper authorities or unlucky. Muggers tend to have short careers as such I'm low to middle management. Alignment doesn't say what you will do so much as why you will do it.
I'm loyal to my company and I've never stolen from them. It isn't long term cost effective. Any intelligent thief would do the same. Don't steal from your party or introduce them in anyway shape or form into your extra curricular activities. You don't do this for the same reason that you don't burn down your house even if you are a bit of a pyro. The people that do these things are not necessarily evil, they're crazy. What do you do if you have a crazy evil character in your party? Kill him, put him in prison, or baleful polymorph him into a rabbit until you can get him some help in the local asylum.
Crazy people do not generally as a rule make good party members. The problem that I've seen over the years as a gamer isn't so much as people screwing up playing evil so much as failing to realize that they're mimicking bad television. People that have overarching manipulative plots to kill or maim everyone close to them are the exception not the rule.
How do things not eventually come to a head? Someone mentioned the party that wants to stop an evil wizard while he's thinking the wizard is in his chair. When the wizard's defeated, the party's not just going to let you keep the evil macguffin.
Or what if some theif robs a bank? Good guys want to give the money back, bad guy wants to keep it. Does the evil one just say nothing? Does he try to subvert everyone elses wishes and steal it?
This to me is an odd question. People tend to act in their own self interest. If I had in my life to determine my alignment based off of the Pathfinder alignment scale I would be most likely chaotic evil. By your definition I should be robbing banks, stabbing people and mugging people downtown left and right. I do not do these things not because of some vaunted sense of right and wrong, but because it is not within my own self interest.
If I were to do these things on a long enough given timeline I would be either caught by the proper authorities or unlucky. Muggers tend to have short careers as such I'm low to middle management. Alignment doesn't say what you will do so much as why you will do it.
I'm loyal to my company and I've never stolen from them. It isn't long term cost effective. Any intelligent thief would do the same. Don't steal from your party or introduce them in anyway shape or form into your extra curricular activities. You don't do this for the same reason that you don't burn down your house even if you are a bit of a pyro. The people that do these things are not necessarily evil, they're crazy. What do you do if you have a crazy evil character in your party? Kill him, put him in prison, or baleful polymorph him into a rabbit until you can get him some help in the local asylum.
Crazy people do not generally as a rule make good party members. The problem that I've seen over the years as a gamer isn't so much as people screwing up playing evil so much as failing to realize that they're mimicking bad...
Would you be willing to steal and kill if you knew you could get away with it? If not you are more likely to be neutral.
Only if it was in my best interest. The question is what do I get out of it if I were to do such an action. Money? Ego gratification? If it doesn't effect me in any way other than positively then yes of course. I might want to beat some guys head in for irritating me at the theatre with his cell phone. But I really want more to stay out of prison so I can keep seeing movies.
The problem with the knew I could get away with it schemes is that when you start thinking you can get definitely away with it you start scooting into crazy people territory. Could I probably get away with stealing from my job. Yup. I give myself a ninety nine percent chance of success. I could possibly reap a decent amount of cash over a few years. The question is a matter of instances. Each time you do it you roll the dice again to see if you get caught. Is a few thousand bucks worth the four years I've spent in retail climbing way up to management worth it? Hell no. I'd never get another management job again. Therefore I would not do it once nor would I take a bat to the guys head at the theatre even on a ninety nine percent chance. It simply isn't cost effective. A hours ego gratification isn't worth the time behind bars. Any rational person would do the same.
Edit I'm looking to play a Souldrinker in the game I'm playing in. Neutral evil nihilist home of evil druids, daemons, and undead. At no point will I ever while playing, despite my firm belief that everything will and should sum to zero, act in a hostile manner towards my party. In order to get everything to die preferably by my hand I've got to have power first. That means we will be slaying a few evil wizards, vicious henchmen, and crazy ninjas on the way and absolutely no unwanted orphan children wandering the streets alone. It means I will be listening to a paladin day in and day out tell me about the glories of brilliant light and I will be casting a hide alignment spell every watch so I don't ping evil and have to explain to him that varying perspectives are a necessity of the universe. It means not feeding every bit of wild life I encounter to my pet daemon to get the extra soul gems. I'm forsaking short term gain for long term benefit. Everyone does this. It's why we get up in the morning to go to work even if we don't want to.
The problem seems not to be evil characters, as stupid players. I have had more problems with Paladins over the years than I ever had with evil characters.
Example Story
We had encountered an ultra-tough BBEG, my guy managed to successfully use an iron bands of binding, but we knew it wouldn't keep him long.
Me: (to Paladin) Quick, he's helpless. Finish him.
Paladin: No! I will not attack a helpless opponent!
Me: ?????
The BBEG then broke free, killed the Paladin and Cleric in a single round, and would have TPKed the remaining two of us had we not turned tails and run on our next initiative.
Now please don't think from this that I hate paladins as a class. I just hate the way that some people play them.
Actually, nothing prevents Good characters from doing any of the above as long as they maintain a respect for life, especially innocent ones. Too bad for the Evil guy that he does not exactly classify as innocent.
Ahh but does the party know that? The trick to being evil, whether or not you're in a good party, is not to walk around with a sign on your head that says "Eeeeevil 666". With a good party you're fine till you get caught. With an evil party you won't even make it that long.
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Ahh but does the party know that? The trick to being evil, whether or not you're in a good party, is not to walk around with a sign on your head that says "Eeeeevil 666". With a good party you're fine till you get caught. With an evil party you won't even make it that long.
Actually, nothing prevents Good characters from doing any of the above as long as they maintain a respect for life, especially innocent ones. Too bad for the Evil guy that he does not exactly classify as innocent.
Detect Evil
Yep. He's evil, see the big sign?
Detect EvilYep. He's evil, see the big sign?
Any of the many ways to get hide alignment, master spy, and read the effects of detect evil they don't always glow. This is also pretty much reserved for paladins, clerics, oracles and inquisitors. While some paladins are turning it on every eleven seconds, the other classes aren't and generally if your team is burning spell slots to see if you glow you might have done something a tad bit suspicious lately where they could see.
Not really. If he is a cleric, a paladin, or an outsider, then sure. He lights up under the spell.
Regular PCs/NPCs: Not so much. 5 class levels or hit die OR less you radiate no aura at all. 6-10 is only faint and 11-25 is moderate. And detect evil can be fooled because it also detects evil intents. Such as, that halfling just stole my pouch--I'm gonna kill him! EVIL INTENT. Even if the creature himself is not evil.
Clerics, paladins (well, anti-paladins), and outsiders register much more quickly and more strongly: 1 class level or HD is faint; 2-4 is moderate; 5-10 is strong, and 11+ is overwhelming.
So the best that any non-cleric, non-antipaladin, non-outsider evil NPC or PC can register is 2 on the evil-o-meter, or moderate. And might even be a misreading based upon intentions that the creature will not be carrying out.
And that is if the evil person doesn't plan for this eventuality and use some form of magic to shield himself. Undetectable alignment or a ring of mind shielding, for example.
Master Arminas
Of course I'm not going to kill that orphan, or sacrifice that maiden. No one suffers if I do that.
That orphan out on the street? I'm going to give him alms. See? Of course it's not quite enough to get some food... but if he can just get that one last copper he needs... he could actually eat... hmmm such temptation.
The maiden? Yeah she's looking to get married. I'm going to treat her nice, say nice things, maybe take her out to dinner... wine her dine her and maybe entertain her before leaving next week. Hey her choice, I never forced her and I can't help it that she couldn't resist temptation -- she can explain the goat's eyes and red hair to her green eyed brunette fiance when I'm not around, not my problem.
The good duke got hurt in a possible assassination attempt? Hey I got a spell that will keep him from dying and heal his wounds. No it's not going to do anything stupid like turn him undead, or curse him or anything absolutely stupid like that. Sure he might read as evil to a detection spell for a minute but hey I saved his life, and he's no worse for my work either.
A loan to a family? Sure, I'll even give you five years to pay it off, of course this is what the interest rate is going to be. What's that? Can't make the next month? Well alright I can waive this month's payment but I'm going to have to tack a fee on at the end and raise that interest rate, after all I was expecting you to be honest and good and pay your debts back on time. It would look bad and have others taking advantage of me if I didn't.
Sure I can find out that information you want, just give me a lock of your wife's hair and we can see if she's being unfaithful to you. Never mind the fact you never asked if I knew why she was being unfaithful or if some magic was involved. No I didn't cast a single spell on her, but he didn't ask if she was possessed by a succubus/ghost that was already here when we arrived. I can't help it if he didn't realize it's not her fault she's being unfaithful to him.
Just a few of the many examples of how you can be absolutely evil while still doing supposedly good things and helping people out. Of course you don't want them to die -- they don't suffer as long that way.
Like I wrote in an earlier post, being evil does not mean I have to strive to do evil things all the way.
A neutral evil villain does whatever she can get away with. She is out for herself, pure and simple. She sheds no tears for those she kills, whether for profit, sport, or convenience. She has no love of order and holds no illusions that following laws, traditions, or codes would make her any better or more noble.
So, if I work towards my own goals, using whatever seems to have the best effort to payout ratio... why should I strain my relationship with a party that will feed me, defend me, and, if played right, will even do the dirty work for me?
I am not out to spread evil. Heck, I am not even out to make others suffer... their well-being (or even life) is irrelevant. I am out for me, myself, and I, and maybe occasionally for those I fancy (having no one to cuddle me might be emotionally distressing, after all). If my actions bring happiness to others; well, so be it (note to self: if possible, take credit for doing good deeds, it really helps my popularity). If I have to ruin someone's life, plunge a family into despair, or kill a couple dozen innocents; where's the problem?
Oh, I detect as evil? Well, I should have a plausible story for covering that, or take measures to slip the radar. Once I made myself indispensible to the group, and secured the friendship of a few fellows, they are much less likely to choke on these simple formalities.
So, I'mma just leave this here mmmmm'kay?
(Spoilers for Darths and Droids web comic, though not tremendous spoilers - if you want to avoid spoiling yourself, avoid reading the transcript at the bottom, but otherwise only look at the yellow box)
EDIT: I forgot that I'd written up this stuff in another tab. Oops.
Well looks like you have your answer. Its not possible without meta.
I... wha-... huh? I don't... I... this isn't even remotely accurate, any more, at least, than saying "Well, looks like you can't play any alignment ever without meta." Is it more difficult? Sure. But it's not impossible.
query:How do things not eventually come to a head? Someone mentioned the party that wants to stop an evil wizard while he's thinking the wizard is in his chair. When the wizard's defeated, the party's not just going to let you keep the evil macguffin.Or what if some theif robs a bank? Good guys want to give the money back, bad guy wants to keep it. Does the evil one just say nothing? Does he try to subvert everyone elses wishes and steal it?
stuff:Alignment doesn't say what you will do so much as why you will do it.This to me is an odd question. People tend to act in their own self interest. If I had in my life to determine my alignment based off of the Pathfinder alignment scale I would be most likely chaotic evil. By your definition I should be robbing banks, stabbing people and mugging people downtown left and right. I do not do these things not because of some vaunted sense of right and wrong, but because it is not within my own self interest.If I were to do these things on a long enough given timeline I would be either caught by the proper authorities or unlucky. Muggers tend to have short careers as such I'm low to middle management.
more stuff:I'm loyal to my company and I've never stolen from them. It isn't long term cost effective. Any intelligent thief would do the same. Don't steal from your party or introduce them in anyway shape or form into your extra curricular activities. You don't do this for the same reason that you don't burn down your house even if you are a bit of a pyro. The people that do these things are not necessarily evil, they're crazy. What do you do if you have a crazy evil character in your party? Kill him, put him in prison, or baleful polymorph him into a rabbit until you can get him some help in the local asylum.Crazy people do not generally as a rule make good party members. The problem that I've seen over the years as a gamer isn't so much as people screwing up playing evil so much as failing to realize that they're mimicking bad television. People that have overarching manipulative plots to kill or maim everyone close to them are the exception not the rule.
This. While alignment certainly guides actions, it's never a be-all end-all tell of exactly what a person would do. There's a difference between being murderous and greedy and being uncontrollably murderous and greedy.
My above examples by the way were for those that want to be evil without ever really pushing the paladin into a corner where they can be justified in attacking you -- and to point out the amount of evil that can be done by giving others enough rope to hang themselves.
It isn't required, but it certainly would help to show why you aren't a good guy.
Well, Abe, a Paladin, well, s/he miiiiiiiiiiight start to get a little suspicious about such behaviors and, starting at 5th, might be restrained from continuing on with the evil character by their code. Anyone except the paladin on the other hand...
(Technically you could certainly make a ring or something similar with undetectable alignment, glibness, and magic aura so it doesn't even look magical, but still prohibits anyone from knowing your alignment, and allows you to fool divination spells - with a nice +30 to bluffs for lying to boot! - or alternatively the GM could make it a necessary function that they work together for <INSERT QUEST TIME HERE>, but, you know, I'm just saying, paladins, specifically, do make it harder to run a party with (an) evil character(s).)
EDIT: finishing ellipsis and an extra line break
Oh yeah paladins do -- and he normally couldn't adventure with 'evil' but there isn't much he could do in a physical manner about the actions themselves. Those were all legitimate and were not coercive.
You are correct, Abe. I just wanted to clear that up, just in case the party had a paladin.
You make a good point, FEG!
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An evil character may not even know that he is evil. He may see his goals as good and virtuous, but simply ignores the evil he commits to achieve them. The evil character may even know the darkness that resides within him, but believes it is only another tool to reach his goal. He may believe his evil nature is what allows goodness to exist, or that neither good nor evil truly exist. He may believe that right and wrong, are separate from good and evil, or that law and chaos, are what truly matters. It may be his love and friendship, that fuel his evil. What can inspire great acts of good, may also inspire great acts of evil. Such evil characters may have the conviction of a paladin, and be charitable and kind, but a wrath like that of a demon.
Exactly.
I'm Lawful Orange: I believe in making people stronger or more ambitious, and destroying anything that makes them weak or lazy. I approach this with the zeal of any Paladin; you could say that I am a Paladin of this "Lawful Orange" alignment.
Good and Evil are both different shades of Blue, with Evil usually being a much deeper shade of Blue. Good is Blue because it hinders the powerful and makes the weak lazy. Evil is even more Blue because it keeps the weak from developing at all and makes the strong lazy.
So being an "Orange Paladin", I spend most of my time promoting Orange by making people stronger. I heal the sick and crippled, I arm the oppressed, and I protect those that are still growing so that they have the chance to become strong. Most people call that Good, and I'm happy to do Good as long as it's Orange.
But I also destroy Blue, and I destroy Blue with all of the wrath of a Blackguard and none of the mercy; I don't care what shade of Blue I'm smiting, because anything that promotes weakness and disorder must be destroyed. I will root out and destroy demonic cults and slave-traders alongside heroes and I will bathe in the blood of tyrants and devils-- but if angels are beating swords into plowshares, I will steal their plowshares and burn their fields until they realize they still need swords. If some bleeding-heart Wizard tries to build the Tippyverse with magic trips that cast create food and water and fabricate, I will destroy everything they've built and everything they've ever loved until they stop.
So yeah. I'll spend 99% of the time doing absolute pure exalted Good and then in a split second I will cross the Moral Event Horizon twice, kicking every puppy along the way.
So what's my "real" alignment, in Pathfinder terms, and whom do I adventure with?
Exactly.
I'm Lawful Orange: I believe in making people stronger or more ambitious, and destroying anything that makes them weak or lazy. I approach this with the zeal of any Paladin; you could say that I am a Paladin of this "Lawful Orange" alignment.
Good and Evil are both different shades of Blue, with Evil usually being a much deeper shade of Blue. Good is Blue because it hinders the powerful and makes the weak lazy. Evil is even more Blue because it keeps the weak from developing at all and makes the strong lazy.
So being an "Orange Paladin", I spend most of my time promoting Orange by making people stronger. I heal the sick and crippled, I arm the oppressed, and I protect those that are still growing so that they have the chance to become strong. Most people call that Good, and I'm happy to do Good as long as it's Orange.
But I also destroy Blue, and I destroy Blue with all of the wrath of a Blackguard and none of the mercy; I don't care what shade of Blue I'm smiting, because anything that promotes weakness and disorder must be destroyed. I will root out and destroy demonic cults and slave-traders alongside heroes and I will bathe in the blood of tyrants and devils-- but if angels are beating swords into plowshares, I will steal their plowshares and burn their fields until they realize they still need swords. If some bleeding-heart Wizard tries to build the Tippyverse with magic trips that cast create food and water and fabricate, I will destroy everything they've built and everything they've ever loved until they stop.
So yeah. I'll spend 99% of the time doing absolute pure exalted Good and then in a split second I will cross the Moral Event Horizon twice, kicking every puppy along the way.
So what's my "real" alignment, in Pathfinder terms, and whom do I adventure with?
Seriously, your point is loud and clear, and a good one.
Not so seriously, you won't be adventuring with anyone 'cause you angered the wizards who were working on their tippyverse, and now their pet terrasque has been ordered to rock your world. :P|
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An evil character may not even know that he is evil. He may see his goals as good and virtuous, but simply ignores the evil he commits to achieve them. The evil character may even know the darkness that resides within him, but believes it is only another tool to reach his goal. He may believe his evil nature is what allows goodness to exist, or that neither good nor evil truly exist. He may believe that right and wrong, are separate from good and evil, or that law and chaos, are what truly matters. It may be his love and friendship, that fuel his evil. What can inspire great acts of good, may also inspire great acts of evil. Such evil characters may have the conviction of a paladin, and be charitable and kind, but a wrath like that of a demon.
Mr Misunderstood: "Hey, Paladin Bob, do you think I'm evil?"
Paladin Bob scrunches up his face, squints his eyes, tightens his bowels and...*Detect Evil*..."Yep. You're evil."
Again, as written, Alignments are part of the structure of the universe. It's not a matter of whether the person thinks they are evil, or does or doesn't want to be evil, it's a black & white matter of whether they are Evil or not, period.
Simplistic, sure, not easy to roleplay around, perhaps, but no matter what your character wants to think of himself, or how he wants to justify it, if he's evil then he's evil...
Again, as written, Alignments are part of the structure of the universe. It's not a matter of whether the person thinks they are evil, or does or doesn't want to be evil, it's a black & white matter of whether they are Evil or not, period.
Simplistic, sure, not easy to roleplay around, perhaps, but no matter what your character wants to think of himself, or how he wants to justify it, if he's evil then he's evil...
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.The same should be true for good too.
and if a single act of evil make you evil, then sense/detect evil is a curse since 99.99999% of the world would be evil, hell, good might not even exist...
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And, in theory, 'good' people are supposed to *want* to help people, and be all compassionate and stuff, so it's a win for them, too.
A bunch of 'good' people who step around those who could use a hand up, and only share their good fortune with those who 100% fit their criteria of behavior (and, therefore, don't really need their help or counsel or support...) isn't 'good,' it's just a mean kid's clique of smug self-righteous creeps. It's not enough to only hang with the morally cool crowd that reinforces how much better than thou you are.
Sometimes you gotta get down there and wash the feet of someone you consider beneath you (or at least ladle out some free soup to someone that society is clamoring doesn't deserve free soup, 'cause literal foot-washing is so last millenium), to remember that 'being good' and 'feeling superior' are two very much exclusive states of being.
Set-- Really good points, both in this post and the one you posted slightly later than this one. I really appreciate your view on genuinely good vs 'holier-than-thou' behavior. :)
Set-- Really good points, both in this post and the one you posted slightly later than this one. I really appreciate your view on genuinely good vs 'holier-than-thou' behavior. :)
And, in theory, 'good' people are supposed to *want* to help people, and be all compassionate and stuff, so it's a win for them, too.
A bunch of 'good' people who step around those who could use a hand up, and only share their good fortune with those who 100% fit their criteria of behavior (and, therefore, don't really need their help or counsel or support...) isn't 'good,' it's just a mean kid's clique of smug self-righteous creeps. It's not enough to only hang with the morally cool crowd that reinforces how much better than thou you are.
Sometimes you gotta get down there and wash the feet of someone you consider beneath you (or at least ladle out some free soup to someone that society is clamoring doesn't deserve free soup, 'cause literal foot-washing is so last millenium), to remember that 'being good' and 'feeling superior' are two very much exclusive states of being.
Here here! I don't know how I missed Set's post. I generally love all of his posts, and this one is a treasure among treasures. ^-^
Again, as written, Alignments are part of the structure of the universe. It's not a matter of whether the person thinks they are evil, or does or doesn't want to be evil, it's a black & white matter of whether they are Evil or not, period.
Simplistic, sure, not easy to roleplay around, perhaps, but no matter what your character wants to think of himself, or how he wants to justify it, if he's evil then he's evil...
.
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The same should be true for good too.and if a single act of evil make you evil, then sense/detect evil is a curse since 99.99999% of the world would be evil, hell, good might not even exist...
In a world of absolute alignments based on actions, a realistic world cannot exist. In a world where on action makes you that alignment but not true for the opposite, then only one alignment exists.
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I've been largely amused by this discussion (and really impressed by Set's posts), but I thought I'd finally put in some input. Most of the games I've played where alignment was a factor (i.e., D&D and its derivatives, mainly-- most of the other RPGs I play don't have such alignment mechanics), the group has generally settled on all PCs being Good or Neutral on the Good/Evil axis. Sometimes it's been a stated requirement; but every bit as often it's something that was just done that way by everyone's free choice.
However, I've been in a few games where there was one (or more) evil characters in a largely good group, and had it work out. At least once, I was playing the evil character. It worked, for starters, because "evil" is not one-dimensional, and because if someone is evil overall as far as their appropriate alignment, it still doesn't mean they are evil in every way. The bottom line, up front, as someone else already said it, is that being evil in D&D terms can be as simple as being someone who strictly practices a "The End Always Justifies the Means" morality.
The character I was playing was Neutral Evil, and a professional Assassin (not necessarily the class, but rather the actual practice), in a very historically-based 'Britain in the Middle Ages + magic and such' type of world. She was female, but always went about disguised as a man, and few of the party she was working with ever realized she wasn't really male (all campaign long...). That she'd been of yeoman/peasant stock at birth, and was female in a world that very much restricted women; yet was something of a freethinker who refused to accept her society's class and gender restrictions, had a lot to do with the development of her other attitudes.
She was evil, because:
She was utterly ruthless and rather bloodthirsty.
She was entirely vicious and nasty (to the extent she could get away with it) to anyone who crossed her or who got on her bad side.
She would kill anyone, without hesitation, without qualm, without regret-- except for friends, innocents, and children (she genuinely cared about her friends-- more on that later; and she has standards, as well as a feeling that people who haven't had a chance to make a moral choice, or who haven't screwed one up, deserve a little better than everyone else).
She was vindictive and held grudges too.
She fundamentally had no respect whatsoever for the 'sanctity' of sentient life-- except the lives of friends, innocents, and children.
Everyone, other than friends, really didn't matter to her at all except as the means to an end, tools to be used, vermin to be exterminated for being in her way, or background scenery to be ignored because it didn't fit into one of the other three categories mentioned here (moderated slightly by her unwillingness to hurt/kill innocents and children).
She regularly and habitually used poisons against her enemies and targets (although she was subtle about it).
She would also torture people (if she could reasonably get away with it) whenever they either knew something she needed to know and she thought she could get it out of them by torture; or they had really pissed her off and she decided to take it out on them slowly and painfully before finishing them off.
She was very pragmatic and practical-- to her, most decisions did not revolve around right or wrong-- they revolved around "is this going to work? is this effective? is this expedient?" instead. She generally didn't consider any means to be off the table.
She did engage in psychological terror techniques against her enemies and also to warn off any would be enemies all the time-- major part of her modus operandi (amusingly enough, in light of other threads, she did hang mutilated/castrated corpses of her enemies in the town square a few times, as warnings for various purposes).
She was also a professional assassin-- as in, she accepted contracts and killed people for money-- in cold blood. The only people she wouldn't take a contract on were friends, innocents and children (she killed a couple of would-be employers for trying to get her to take a contract on her three "no-go" target categories).
Not good-- so far.
However, she did have a lot of good points:
She was fiercely loyal and totally dedicated to her friends. She definitely 'had their back' and her friends knew they could trust her (and of course, she could and did trust them).
She genuinely loved and cared about her friends-- they weren't objects to her, she saw them as worthwhile 'ends in and of themselves', not as tools to be used ('friends' btw, were somewhat few and far between-- but did cover a circle of people that went quite a bit beyond just the other PCs, although the other PCs were definitely friends of hers, in her eyes).
She would go out of her way, even at the risk of her own life, to help and protect her friends-- and for all of that nasty attitude, she'd actually go out of her way to protect innocents and children too.
While she wanted to get paid as an adventurer, and might gripe a little about taking on an adventure without any expectation of payment-- she would go along with the rest of the party on such a mission, without hesitation, because her friends thought it was important and were going to do it anyway, and her friends needed her. No other motivation necessary, for this character to take on almost any adventure, than that 'her friends needed her'. She didn't choose and stand by her friends because of what they could do for her-- her love and caring actually wasn't the selfish sort, once she gave those feelings to someone.
She was not 'crazy evil'-- she'd go along with appearing to be a nice person, be seen to be a good citizen, etc--
Being someone whose main focus was expedience and practicality, and not really hating humanity, just not caring one way or another about most of it, she didn't kill without a reason and didn't go out of her way to make trouble for people. The only time she might be seen to be killing just for kicks and grins was if someone really ticked her off-- then killing became sport.
Ordinary people didn't really have anything to fear from her so long as they stayed out of her way. She was usually really after the rich and powerful, not the poor and impotent.
Kind of like 'Dexter', seems like most of her assassinations (and enemies targeted in general) were 'bad people', not the ones who were actually helping build a good society.
She also had very little to no tolerance for slavery. Oddly enough, when looking at other people, she didn't think it mattered at all how long you lived, but she did think it mattered a lot how you conducted yourself while you were alive-- and she did have a (maybe perverse) strong respect for the concepts of freedom and free will. She'd either kill someone, manipulate him into helping her, or leave him alone-- but she usually wouldn't coerce anyone by force unless she already planned on killing him anyway (same goes for use of torture-- she never tortured anyone that she was planning on setting free afterward).
She also actually more or less always supported 'good' ends, at least when it came to actions that affected society as a whole (she was just very much an "Ends justify the means" combined with "it doesn't matter how long you live, it matters how well you live, so it's not really wrong to send you to the next world" kind of woman).
Also, in regard to party harmony--
She recognized that she had a considerably darker and much more amoral outlook than her friends did, and that some of the things she felt were necessary and/or appropriate to do would disturb her friends. She was quite careful to keep the darker side out of other people's view, so she generally did not disturb the party harmony (being subtle about poison use was part of this).
She still undertook some particularly ruthless and brutal acts on the party's behalf (without telling them what she did/how she came by the information/etc), on the grounds that it's for the party's own good, even if they didn't understand the necessity the way she did.
We didn't have a Paladin in the group, but she had an undetectable alignment item anyway, just to make sure that the occasional stray detect evil ability wouldn't disrupt party harmony. The other party members were aware that she was somewhat 'darker' than the rest of them, but never saw her take it far enough for it to be a problem for them.
Now-- overall, the character was ruled to be neutral evil, because she was just too ruthless, bloodthirsty, and uncaring about the lives of anyone other than her three standards that she stepped up for. But, she wasn't all evil... it's just that, for placing her in the 9 alignments, the evil parts outweigh the good and neutral parts (IMO). She was still very much a team player, valued in the party, and always welcome there, as well as motivated to be there, because she loved and cared about her friends in the party-- enough to be willing to fit in when anyone was looking, too.
Example holds for other folks who might play an evil character-- just because you're evil (for particular reasons of morality and attitude) doesn't mean you have to be evil in all things. Such an evil character can easily play in a mostly-good party without disrupting or ruining anyone else's fun-- it's how you do it, and it's not playing evil to be a jerk, it's MAYBE choosing evil for a character once in a while because you've got a cool concept that will still fit the game and gaming group.
BTW-- if any of you think that the character I've described should actually be rated as some variety of 'neutral' in game, lemme know-- and if you can sort your words out effectively, let me know why.
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In a world of absolute alignments based on actions, a realistic world cannot exist. In a world where on action makes you that alignment but not true for the opposite, then only one alignment exists.
I don't play absolute alignments (I suspect you agree with that view, Ashiel :) ). Also, as far as I am concerned, intent is much more important that reasonably unforeseen, unintended result, for determining whether an action is morally good or evil. This is how I apply things in game... and is not far from my views on morality in RL.
One really should be concerned about not having evil results-- which is why I insert the 'reasonably unforeseen' comment: one cannot claim 'good' intent out of ignorance-- if you should have been able to foresee that your actions were going to have evil results, your intent was NOT good (even if you willfully blinded yourself to the likely outcomes). Also, I do NOT accept the logic of "the end justifies the means" as acceptable for good moral behavior-- one should not choose evil means, even to achieve a good end, IF you can avoid it. I do accept the principle that it is okay to commit a LESSER evil, if that's what it takes to prevent a greater one (and that's the only way it can be done-- no choosing the evil means simply because it's easier, if you can achieve the same good result via good means with a little more effort).
But-- especially when talking of D&D, alignment shifts, and even more so with classes that have alignment requirements-- intent matters most of all, unintended results less so (so long as you could not have reasonably foreseen the unintended results). (This also applies to intelligently and reasonably taking necessary risks, even when the result goes against your intentions-- so long as you knew the consequences and could reasonably determine that the risk was both necessary and worthwhile-- no taking stupid risks and 99%% chance it's gonna be bad/1% it'll be good, and calling it "good intentions" unless it's also something like 100% it'll be worse if we don't try for the 1% chance of success action).
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Exactly.
I'm Lawful Orange: I believe in making people stronger or more ambitious, and destroying anything that makes them weak or lazy. I approach this with the zeal of any Paladin; you could say that I am a Paladin of this "Lawful Orange" alignment.
Good and Evil are both different shades of Blue, with Evil usually being a much deeper shade of Blue. Good is Blue because it hinders the powerful and makes the weak lazy. Evil is even more Blue because it keeps the weak from developing at all and makes the strong lazy.
So being an "Orange Paladin", I spend most of my time promoting Orange by making people stronger. I heal the sick and crippled, I arm the oppressed, and I protect those that are still growing so that they have the chance to become strong. Most people call that Good, and I'm happy to do Good as long as it's Orange.
But I also destroy Blue, and I destroy Blue with all of the wrath of a Blackguard and none of the mercy; I don't care what shade of Blue I'm smiting, because anything that promotes weakness and disorder must be destroyed. I will root out and destroy demonic cults and slave-traders alongside heroes and I will bathe in the blood of tyrants and devils-- but if angels are beating swords into plowshares, I will steal their plowshares and burn their fields until they realize they still need swords. If some bleeding-heart Wizard tries to build the Tippyverse with magic trips that cast create food and water and fabricate, I will destroy everything they've built and everything they've ever loved until they stop.
So yeah. I'll spend 99% of the time doing absolute pure exalted Good and then in a split second I will cross the Moral Event Horizon twice, kicking every puppy along the way.
So what's my "real" alignment, in Pathfinder terms, and whom do I adventure with?
Lawful Neutral, and you are probably the leader of your Hellknight patrol (and considered a Paragon of what the Hellknights stand for).
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BTW-- if any of you think that the character I've described should actually be rated as some variety of 'neutral' in game, lemme know-- and if you can sort your words out effectively, let me know why.
Based on your description, I have indeed a differing opinion on this character's alignment.
Be warned though, that my take on alignments puts a lot of importance on what is said in the RAW, and especially the criterion of how you treat innocent beings. Basically, protecting innocent beings = Good while hurting innocent beings = Evil. Good also puts some weight on respecting life and the dignity of sentient beings, but I consider it secondary to the treatment of innocent beings.
I also believe that taking one act opposed to your alignment is not enough to shift your alignment and that "not Good" does not automatically means Evil but might also be Neutral. Same for all other alignment extremes of course.
Thus I tend to end up with a very harsh worldview of alignments, where Good people "get away" with acts that we would consider barbaric. I believe that it accurately portrays more medieval and savage times where survival is paramount and idealism takes a definite second seat to pragmatism. I also believe that it is closer to the RAW than our modern western view on Good and Evil.
That being said, I believe your character to be Chaotic Good, bordering on Chaotic Neutral.
I describe below the reasons why, based on your description of said character.
She was female, but always went about disguised as a man, and few of the party she was working with ever realized she wasn't really male (all campaign long...). That she'd been of yeoman/peasant stock at birth, and was female in a world that very much restricted women; yet was something of a freethinker who refused to accept her society's class and gender restrictions, had a lot to do with the development of her other attitudes.
The character is definitely not Lawful, since she refuses to follow the social rules for what a "proper" woman should be like. The use of the "freethinker" word even smacks of Chaotic. However, we will need to know if her basic reaction to authority/tradition (ie, being told what to do, what is good or evil, correct or wrong, by other people) is not caring (Neutral) or rebelling (Chaotic).
She was evil, because:
She was utterly ruthless and rather bloodthirsty.
She was entirely vicious and nasty (to the extent she could get away with it) to anyone who crossed her or who got on her bad side.
She would kill anyone, without hesitation, without qualm, without regret-- except for friends, innocents, and children (she genuinely cared about her friends-- more on that later; and she has standards, as well as a feeling that people who haven't had a chance to make a moral choice, or who haven't screwed one up, deserve a little better than everyone else).
Based on the importance I give on the treatment of innocent beings, the above description is not enough to peg her as Evil since it appears that her being entirely vicious and nasty to anyone who crossed her does not in fact apply to innocent people. People not only have to cross her, they also have to be bad persons for her to get all bloodthirsty on them. This does not fit my view of Evil. We will need further information on how she treat innocent beings : does she simply not care what happens to them (Neutral) or does she go out of her way to protect them (Good) ?
She was vindictive and held grudges too.
She fundamentally had no respect whatsoever for the 'sanctity' of sentient life-- except the lives of friends, innocents, and children.
Everyone, other than friends, really didn't matter to her at all except as the means to an end, tools to be used, vermin to be exterminated for being in her way, or background scenery to be ignored because it didn't fit into one of the other three categories mentioned here (moderated slightly by her unwillingness to hurt/kill innocents and children).
Once again we have this exception made for innocent beings (in fact twice again here), which makes her non-Evil IMO, even if her seeming disrespect for the dignity of sentient (but guilty) life would put her closer to Neutral than to Good.
She regularly and habitually used poisons against her enemies and targets (although she was subtle about it).
This strengthens the case about non-Lawful but not to see her as Evil, unless her targets would include innocent beings.
She would also torture people (if she could reasonably get away with it) whenever they either knew something she needed to know and she thought she could get it out of them by torture; or they had really pissed her off and she decided to take it out on them slowly and painfully before finishing them off.
She was very pragmatic and practical-- to her, most decisions did not revolve around right or wrong-- they revolved around "is this going to work? is this effective? is this expedient?" instead. She generally didn't consider any means to be off the table.
She did engage in psychological terror techniques against her enemies and also to warn off any would be enemies all the time-- major part of her modus operandi (amusingly enough, in light of other threads, she did hang mutilated/castrated corpses of her enemies in the town square a few times, as warnings for various purposes).
Once again, we see the disrespect for the dignity/sanctity of life which tends to put her as non-Good. Note however that the "no means off the table" seems to be a bit untrue as she is repetedly described as sparing innocent beings. In other words, she seems ok with torturing/killing the bad guys and their accomplices to reach her goals, but not with torturing/killing their innocent children to reach the same goals. Thus still not Evil.
She was also a professional assassin-- as in, she accepted contracts and killed people for money-- in cold blood. The only people she wouldn't take a contract on were friends, innocents and children (she killed a couple of would-be employers for trying to get her to take a contract on her three "no-go" target categories).
Once again, not Evil, and maybe even Good because she seems keen on protecting innocent beings from those "would-be employers" who would have them murdered.
However, she did have a lot of good points:
She was fiercely loyal and totally dedicated to her friends. She definitely 'had their back' and her friends knew they could trust her (and of course, she could and did trust them).
She genuinely loved and cared about her friends-- they weren't objects to her, she saw them as worthwhile 'ends in and of themselves', not as tools to be used ('friends' btw, were somewhat few and far between-- but did cover a circle of people that went quite a bit beyond just the other PCs, although the other PCs were definitely friends of hers, in her eyes).
She would go out of her way, even at the risk of her own life, to help and protect her friends-- and for all of that nasty attitude, she'd actually go out of her way to protect innocents and children too.
The last sentence is quite damnable. This character goes out fo her way to protect innocent beings. This makes her quite Good. Not Neutral (would not care), nor Evil (would actually hurt/kill innocent beings).
While she wanted to get paid as an adventurer, and might gripe a little about taking on an adventure without any expectation of payment-- she would go along with the rest of the party on such a mission, without hesitation, because her friends thought it was important and were going to do it anyway, and her friends needed her. No other motivation necessary, for this character to take on almost any adventure, than that 'her friends needed her'. She didn't choose and stand by her friends because of what they could do for her-- her love and caring actually wasn't the selfish sort, once she gave those feelings to someone.
She was not 'crazy evil'-- she'd go along with appearing to be a nice person, be seen to be a good citizen, etc--
Being someone whose main focus was expedience and practicality, and not really hating humanity, just not caring one way or another about most of it, she didn't kill without a reason and didn't go out of her way to make trouble for people. The only time she might be seen to be killing just for kicks and grins was if someone really ticked her off-- then killing became sport.
Ordinary people didn't really have anything to fear from her so long as they stayed out of her way. She was usually really after the rich and powerful, not the poor and impotent.
Kind of like 'Dexter', seems like most of her assassinations (and enemies targeted in general) were 'bad people', not the ones who were actually helping build a good society.
Still Good, with some Neutral (non-Good) tendencies because of her disrespect for the sanctity/dignity of life where bad people are concerned.
She also had very little to no tolerance for slavery. Oddly enough, when looking at other people, she didn't think it mattered at all how long you lived, but she did think it mattered a lot how you conducted yourself while you were alive-- and she did have a (maybe perverse) strong respect for the concepts of freedom and free will. She'd either kill someone, manipulate him into helping her, or leave him alone-- but she usually wouldn't coerce anyone by force unless she already planned on killing him anyway (same goes for use of torture-- she never tortured anyone that she was planning on setting free afterward).
She also actually more or less always supported 'good' ends, at least when it came to actions that affected society as a whole (she was just very much an "Ends justify the means" combined with "it doesn't matter how long you live, it matters how well you live, so it's not really wrong to send you to the next world" kind of woman).
This is definitely the description of a Chaotic person because of the importance placed on freedom and free will, which is a hallmark of Chaotic. Neutral (on the Law-Chaos axis) would not care that much about it.
Yes, definitely Chaotic Good IMO, though sometimes bordering on Chaotic Neutral.
... The character is definitely not Lawful, since she refuses to follow the social rules for what a "proper" woman should be like. The use of the "freethinker" word even smacks of Chaotic. However, we will need to know if her basic reaction to authority/tradition (ie, being told what to do, what is good or evil, correct or wrong, by other people) is not caring (Neutral) or rebelling (Chaotic)...
I disagree. I think a character can be lawful without conforming to a particualr societies normal values. Could easily have a particular/personal code of conduct which is followed rigidly and unfailingly. That person is then lawful even if that code of conduct is not normal for that society.
I am not saying that is the case with this character. I am saying 'not a proper woman' does not equate chaotic.
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I appreciate the feedback. I should redefine and clarify a couple of things-- if you're willing to pitch in another post, I'd like to see if that changes your analysis.
The character is definitely not Lawful, since she refuses to follow the social rules for what a "proper" woman should be like. The use of the "freethinker" word even smacks of Chaotic. However, we will need to know if her basic reaction to authority/tradition (ie, being told what to do, what is good or evil, correct or wrong, by other people) is not caring (Neutral) or rebelling (Chaotic).
She never rebels just for the sake of rebelling. She refuses to follow many of the social rules and strictures because she believes they're wrong and/or she doesn't accept their limits on herself. She did believe that concepts of order (society, law, etc.) had their uses and wasn't against all laws and codes.
Based on the importance I give on the treatment of innocent beings, the above description is not enough to peg her as Evil since it appears that her being entirely vicious and nasty to anyone who crossed her does not in fact apply to innocent people. People not only have to cross her, they also have to be bad persons for her to get all bloodthirsty on them. This does not fit my view of Evil. We will need further information on how she treat innocent beings : does she simply not care what happens to them (Neutral) or does she go out of her way to protect them (Good) ?
She did go out of her way (frequently) to protect the people she considered innocent (and also to protect children)-- the catch here is the definition of "innocent" to this character, in terms of who she'd protect and wouldn't kill if she could possibly avoid it. She only considered someone innocent in her book, if they were pure and squeaky-clean and had pretty much never done anything wrong in their life (not quite absolutely, since no-one, including the children she'd also protect, could be entirely free of wrong-doing, but pretty close-- so it's a very hard standard to meet). Innocent, in the sense of not guilty of actual crimes-- not good enough. Innocent, in the sense of not at all in the wrong in the present issue (or issues at hand)-- doesn't matter.
Which means that, for instance, Joe Merchant, who's generally a very good person, but who has lied to customers and suppliers a few times, drives a fairly hard bargain (sometimes at the expense of his customers), places (like most business-men) a little more importance on his profit than on going out of his way to help anyone he can-- he hasn't done anything criminal, and he hasn't really done anything wrong (or at least not much) in society's eyes, but he's already "not innocent" in this character's eyes, and therefore (according to her view) it's quite okay to send him to his final judgement and let the Gods decide if he's more evil or more good.
I should have emphasized that her definition of "innocent" in relation to the exceptions to her usual total willingness to kill and/or use anyone else who wasn't a friend, is a very strict definition rather than the usual adventurer or law enforcement style definition. I should add she also tended to hate any and all 'double standards'. She didn't consider herself "innocent" in her own book by any stretch of the imagination. Another important part of her attitude was that she strongly believed in doing unto others as she expected them to try to do unto her-- as an utter cynic, she obviously didn't have any faith in most of humanity... a large part of her lack of caring for most others and lack of respect for sentient life was because that was precisely what she expected from everyone else (other than her friends).
Well and in fairness it's not as though there isn't money and power in being an adventurer. They are literally the only beings in the universe that reach 1st to 20th level in a matter of months rather than never or by some lifelong path of improvement. They get gold--and not a little gold, Scrooge McDuck levels of gold. They get magic items no one has ever seen before.
They're the 1%. If you can get these guys to accept you as one of them and think you're okay then you are on the fast track to power and wealth. You can do whatever you want as long as they never find out. For an evil guy, that's the dream...
If they were a bunch of powerless schlubs who were constantly throwing themselves on swords so others could get away and giving their money to the disenfanchised it would be quite another matter--but adventuring groups are NEVER like this.
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For evil characters to work in mixed parties, I think the most important thing to keep in mind is that the character's goals or methods might *be* evil, but they need not be in the greater service of "Evil" the cosmic force.
Which is to say a devout Asmodean doesn't want to see the world destroyed any more than anybody else. They might not care about how many of those beneath them they need to trample to accomplish this goal, but they're fundamentally invested in saving the world because "the destruction of everything" is entirely contrary to what they want.
A purely selfish Neutral Evil mercenary might have that alignment simply because they are fundamentally concerned with their own wealth and power, and are not especially concerned with with what they have to do so long as the pay is good enough and the odds are in their favor.
These are pretty much the two best models I've found for fitting evil characters into mixed parties- "You can't destroy the world, I live there too" and "I'll fight anything if it benefits me". As long as you avoid cackling service of dark powers, these generally work fine.
I'm about to play a warlock in a 3.5 game, I had to forget about making him evil because there will be a priest of Lathander in the party, and I did not want to cause disensions, so I made him a CG Tymora worshipper who steadfastly denies that his powers are fiendish in nature.
I'm about to play a warlock in a 3.5 game, I had to forget about making him evil because there will be a priest of Lathander in the party, and I did not want to cause disensions, so I made him a CG Tymora worshipper who steadfastly denies that his powers are fiendish in nature.
I once played a Warlock whose powers came from a Curse placed on his bloodline by Tiamat. Over the generations, the Curse mutated and became something beneficial for him. His Warlock powers were Draconic in nature. He was a CG follower of Hlal. Hlal offered him a little protection from Tiamat.
Well, Tymora offers my character luck and protection from his fiendish origins... I don't know what fiends his thayvian ancestors consorted with, but he's not gonna deal with those.
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This thread makes me happy. People have brought up two of my favorite things to discuss: that evil characters are fully capable of working with others and Paladins are just as likely to try and help an evil person as they are to smite them (perhaps moreso).
The disconnect people seem to have with evil characters is that they seem to treat they all as if they are anti-Paladins; that they must be evil at all times, to all people, always. Evil characters can have loyalty, they can have things they wouldn't do under any circumstances (an evil character can, for example, have an extreme aversion to murder or such, and would never dream of doing it). Obviously evil characters can be detrimental to a party, but they can also not be.
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I have seen cases of good and evil people working together, and it works best when the players and the GM are all mature and respectful. I'll give anecdotes about the times I've been in those situtations:
As it turned out, nobody realized anything until our CN person aimed a spell at everyone except him that would only harm people who weren't Good-aligned. His response? "Sorry, I didn't mean to harm you with it." I was actually hoping that people would take an interest and show him that redemption was possible without being posthumous, but nobody did, and let him convert people. The closest was another player asking me OOC, "Wait, how are you a CE worshipper of a LN god?"
"Well, I'm not a real inquisitor, Razmir may claim he's LN but he's really LE, and he's a false god anyway, but nobody around here even knows who he is."
Later, in Part 3, due to plot-related reasons, she became the focus of an escort mission, and still, nobody noticed or cared how rude or thoughtless she was. She even snuck off one night to get drunk and gamble, and they just let her go. They didn't realize she met a villain that night and bragged to her about her company and their mission, so when they meet the villain later, she's going to out their escort NPC and claim that they were in league the whole time.
So, looking back on those times, I guess good and evil can get along when at least one side is oblivious to the other?