People are overanalyzing this. The answer is quite simple really.
Chaotic Neutral become Evil when the GM says so. ;)
Yes it would. It would mean crossing the line that separates his psychosis (yeah Bats isn't really quite sane if you haven't figured that out) from theirs. And he knows it. Note, I'm not answering this in the context of an alignment debate. Alignment does not belong in a Batman story, especially of the Frank Miller variety.Anyone ever think its stupid for batman to not kill the villains and just lock em up so they escape again, possibly killing more people?
Would it make batman "evil" to finish off joker after beating him in one of their battles?
So... Your saying batman is evil? Superman leaves a lot of people alive too. As does Green Lantern. And Goku too.
People are overanalyzing this. The answer is quite simple really.
Chaotic Neutral become Evil when the GM says so. ;)
Gotta talk about something on Mondays. If we just said that it'd end after like, 1 post wouldn't it?
Something I see a lot in these alignment debates is the argument that if execution is not evil, then killing in general is not evil. An argument frequently proposed is that if the captured individuals are being held for crimes that would get them executed by the state, then the party can execute them without any alignment issues.
This is not accurate in terms of any moral, ethical or criminal code that I am aware of on this planet. Execution is an act that is performed after a trial, and the trial's purpose is to ensure that justice is done. Even in war there are rules about when and why battlefield executions are allowed, and military leaders who have performed or allowed executions without proper military code being followed have been tried and some of them have been executed for their crimes themselves...
This is a well crafted argument from a lawful perspective.
from devil's advocate stance, would a chaotic character who considers the trappings of law and 'appealing to authority' to be a waste of time and effort for everyone consider the absence of a trial and proper procedures to be an issue when executing someone he personally witnessed the guilt of?
Is it hard to believe that a character in an adventuring party whose livelihood often involves "go into that cavern and kill any non-human you find, regardless of intelligence, and we'll pay you a bounty on ears, not captives, we don't have jails in this town" would develop a somewhat cavalier attitude towards summary execution?
From a general perspective.... admittedly not on directly point for the rogues and execution of the helpless.
This is a well crafted argument from a lawful perspective.
from devil's advocate stance, would a chaotic character who considers the trappings of law and 'appealing to authority' to be a waste of time and effort for everyone consider the absence of a trial and proper procedures to be an issue when executing someone he personally witnessed the guilt of?
Lawful vs unlawful and good vs evil are vastly different from D&D point of view. Conan is a Chaotic Neutral character. I've never seen, and I can't envision him doing what is related in this thread. Conan would not bleed to death a group of defenseless captives.
Something I see a lot in these alignment debates is the argument that if execution is not evil, then killing in general is not evil. An argument frequently proposed is that if the captured individuals are being held for crimes that would get them executed by the state, then the party can execute them without any alignment issues.
This is not accurate in terms of any moral, ethical or criminal code that I am aware of on this planet. Execution is an act that is performed after a trial,
Not really true. Several codes through history give the owner the right to kill his slaves. Those acts would be evil from D&D point of view, but lawful
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It sounds like the CN rogue in your example felt that the 3 thugs he bled out had already made their choice in terms of doing good or evil when they attacked the party. They used poison, worked for an employer involved in illegal activities and likely would be killed if they failed in their hired tasks.
He reasonably waited for the rest of the group namely the LG member to exit knowing that they would likely insist on somehow hauling these 4 thugs back to the authorities even though a number of factors probably made this an extremely dangerous and futile task.
Interrogating and torturing the head thug who likely would have ordered his henchmen to kill the party (or kidnap them) in order to protect the racket was merely a means to an end. I'm sure the player thought the same would be done to them so the thugs could find out "who they worked for". Think of what Liam Neeson's character did in Taken. Were those acts CE?
You mentioned the CN rogue lit the head thug on fire only to then put him out and let him live after the interrogation. Interesting choice if he is deemed to be shifting towards CE.
In the end perhaps the CN rogue was merely doing what he felt no one else had the stomach to do or he wanted to save some of the members from having to struggle with some very tough moral choices. Yeah, I'm pretty sure that's what he had in mind.... considering I'm the player of the CN rogue ;-)
Already said I'm not discussing Alignment in terms of Batman. Also your argument is absolutly incoherent. What I said is that modern Frank Miller-style Batman is far from what most people would call sane. He knows that the only difference between him and the bad guys he fights, is that there's a line that he doesn't cross. Ever. With No Bloody Exceptions.
Was pointing to other characters who don't ever kill and asking if they were evil because I misread your post as saying batman was evil because he doesn't kill people. Personally I'm not a big fan of talking about the alignment of comic book characters.
That said, Are we discussing Frank Miller or Alan Moore?
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What would the differences be between a CG, CN, and CE committing a rape? In the case of the CG, it wouldn't happen.
Fixed that for you.
Unbelievable.
Here's my view on the original scenario.
Killing the prisoners is borderline.
Killing them by making them bleed to death is killing them slowly, and that would definitely ping on my evil-dar.
Killing them by making them bleed to death is killing them slowly, and that would definitely ping on my evil-dar.
To be fair, your friends are going to be a lot more suspicious if they suddenly lost their heads.
"I swear, they were nearly headless when you left them and they just sort of rolled off!" or alternatively "They turned into zombies! Could only kill them by separating the head."
Btw, did the OP disappear?
Wow, this alignment thread is getting vitriolic and distracted from its original issue.
Look how surprised I am. This is my surprised kobold face.
KC won the thread on Sunday. Why are we still here?
"Doing what no one else has the stomach to do" is a depressingly common theme in today's villain-protagonist-happy fiction
It's the definition of " the end justify the means". Which is evil, per the D&D and Pathfinder alignment axis. Although it's more Lawful Evil than chaotic
Btw, did the OP disappear?No, I have been chiming in.
Right in front of my face!
Indus, people on the internet will debate anything. Ask a random 100 people in the street how evil it would be to bleed out a bunch of tied up prisoners and I doubt you'd get more than three or four saying "not so bad." So it's definitely evil. The using kerosine to light one on fire and then putting him out is at least as evil as the bleeding them out.
The question shouldn't be "is it evil" the question should be "is it evil enough to shift the rogue's alignment from chaotic neutral to chaotic evil.
My answer, for whatever it might be worth, is that in and of itself, maybe not, but it would be a serious mark on the path to chaotic evil and I'd warn the player that further such actions would have an alignment consequence.
And again, bluff has limitations. "They sky is red" won't fly, and imho "Hey I was just sitting here and they all just bled out" wouldn't fly either, no matter what sort of bluff was rolled.
"Doing what no one else has the stomach to do" is a depressingly common theme in today's villain-protagonist-happy fictionIt's the definition of " the end justify the means". Which is evil, per the D&D and Pathfinder alignment axis. Although it's more Lawful Evil than chaoticWha?!?!? And here I thought "the end justify the means" was the defining feature of the chaotic alignment. How exactly are you coming up with the idea of a LE person using ends to justify means? Or a Lawful anything else, for that matter? LE is about seeking power and crushing others (evil) while working within either "the system" or a set personal code (lawful)...
"the ends justify the means" is the definitive chaotic mindset.
"the ends justify the means" is the motto of guys like Machiavelo (who actually wrote the quote), Stalin and Adolf Hitler. "hey, yes, sending all those guys to the gulag to die of starvation might be a bit overkill, but it's all for the greater good, the revolution, and the higher glory of the nation".
There was a very good book about evil aligments in D&D 3.0, called Evil, from AEG. It has the best written and most comprehensive description of (evil) aligments. The Lawful Evil guy is Darth Vader. He might be a "bit rough", but he does what he does because it's the "necessary evil". The end (bring order and peace to the galaxy), justify a few rebels hung, and a planet destroyed here and there. You kill the prisioners, because it's the best thing for your means (either personal goals, or your lord/country/ideals goals). A Tyranny is Lawul Evil. It might not be a pleasant place, things like "freedom" might not be exactly welcome, but they do what they do, because it's the "best way to run the country", or because "dire troubles need dire solutions". They might buy and sell slaves, but they do so because "someone has to work in the fields".
Chaotic Evils in the other hand, don't even need a mean. They are evil, because they can. When you are a Red Dragon and you can end every argument with 24d10 breath weapon, there is not a lot of incentive to be civilizated. You kill the prisioners because you can. Who is going to stop you anyways?
EDIT: another good example would be someone stealing your house from yourself. A Lawful Evil bank would evict you, because "it's needed", because "the bank has to pay his debts too", and because "banks are to big to fall", and "credit has to keep flowing". Then they'll take your evicted house, demolish it, and build a big Parking "which is needed in this zone". A chaotic evil band of bikers would take your house and burn it into the ground because, you know... it's fun
There was a very good book about evil aligments in D&D 3.0, called Evil, from AEG. It has the best written and most comprehensive description of (evil) aligments.
Wow, I'm so glad you mentioned this. That book has been in a box here for years, never touched, and was about to head onto ebay in a week or two with a bunch of other stuff. Now I'm going to rescue it for my bookshelves.
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Just to be clear the lamp oil thing was only a bold way of getting the boss to talk after he laughed in my character's face and wouldn't crack. A candle was tossed at him as the final "last ditch" effort to break him and the flames were quickly put out. From personal experience (flaming shot gone awry) this would only have resulting in superficial 2nd degree burns which would heal just fine leaving no permanent scars.
The 3 thugs that were killed were unconscious at the time so the idea was to end their lives without additional pain and suffering. My PC also made the choice to cut the ropes off the boss after he went unconscious (was at 0 hp) from the fire damage and give him back the most likely magic dagger the group had taken from him. This same dagger was used by the boss to drop my PC from 10 hp (max) to 0 hp with one critical hit. Poetic I thought.
I tried to play a bit of regret from perhaps going too far with the interrogations and the idea of hopefully tracking this guy to the bigger fish. Interesting that no one other than my GM (the OP) made any comments about my Taken reference. Ask 100 movie goers their thoughts on his actions. Leave a guy tied to a chair and turn on the power? I bet no one polled would say that was evil because it was justified by the bad guy's actions. And therein lies the rub...
When someone tries to claim coup de gras is evil, I point to the follow text from the alignment system.
The PCs track them to some caves and kill them—but the dead goblins leave behind babies. What should the PCs do with those? Kill them? Leave them be? What is the best and most appropriate thing for a good character to do in this situation? Just as there are varying good alignments, there are different solutions to this problem. .......Lastly, a good character who believes the younglings can never overcome their innate evil might kill them all outright, viewing the action as good, just, and the most merciful option.
When someone tries to claim coup de gras is evil, I point to the follow text from the alignment system.
I once played with a GM who thought it was always evil. Can't count the number of times someone would come back to kill us. You know what its like to be stabbed by the same guy in three different scenarios because your GM won't let you kill him? You give up on it after that.
I dont tell my players when they change alientment. The system is there to make stuff in the rules work and the players are IMOP better served by finding out in game,that they have become evil( or chaotic or what ever), than being told out of game. Ther is a magic item that can tell some one the moral value of ther actions. But generally the aligentment system is not there to knock folks on the head with.
And to the OP: killing some one for conveience is evil. It may be for the "greater good" but even if you belive that it is still a lesser evil. And you as a GM will have to decide how the world reacts to stuff like this. Make it an oppotunity for storytelling, pehaps one of the thugs had a kid age 12 that was following his father that morning. And now he knows what happend and is terrified of the rogue. This is somthing that can stay with the PC for ever, an make it a great roleplaying experiance.
When someone tries to claim coup de gras is evil, I point to the follow text from the alignment system.
The PCs track them to some caves and kill them—but the dead goblins leave behind babies. What should the PCs do with those? Kill them? Leave them be? What is the best and most appropriate thing for a good character to do in this situation? Just as there are varying good alignments, there are different solutions to this problem. .......Lastly, a good character who believes the younglings can never overcome their innate evil might kill them all outright, viewing the action as good, just, and the most merciful option.
For that example, I'd probably take into account what the PCs know of goblins in that setting.
If we're playing in a setting where captured goblin children are commonly brought up in human society and turn out non-evil and productive members of society, that's entirely different to the game where the innate evil of goblins can't be overcome and where one of the PCs has a backstory involving a goblin raid that tortured and killed half their village.
Similarly, it could be that orcs in this setting are divided into a violent warrior caste and a perfectly acceptable peaceful villager caste, in which case burning down the entire town without any other reason than "they're orcs" is a pretty evil act. Conversely, if nobody has ever been to an orc village before in this setting and the only ones encountered thus far were the warriors, it's not really an evil act to burn the town if you truly thought it was full of slavering barbaric monsters (although the character themselves may feel pretty evil if they later find out the truth.)
I think the bigger issue is what makes something evil, and what dose it mean when something is evil.
At it's very core, I'd define evil as "doing harm".
However, it's possible to perform an evil act by accident, and also possible to do harm that prevents a greater harm from being done (and for that to then be a good act, if preventing harm was the true goal.)
It's also a matter of degrees of evil, and half the time it's too grey an area to give absolute values to.
The only real arbitrator at the end of the day is the GM.
You have to ask a number of questions:
- What did the character perceive their intention to be?
- What was the actual intention of the action, from outside of the character's point of view.
- What result did the action have, and could it have been forseen?
- How much harm was done?
- How much harm was prevented?
- Does the character regret the action? Did they enjoy it?
- Would they do it again, given the same circumstances, after seeing the result?
- Do they wish an alternative option had been available? Were other alternatives, in fact, available?
Evil, with a major "E". The bleeding out of helpless captives was bad enough, but then torturing a prisoner by lighting him on fire? At that point I'd ask for the character sheet and say "please make a new character, this one now is an NPC under my control".
At it's very core, I'd define evil as "doing harm".I think the bigger issue is what makes something evil, and what dose it mean when something is evil.
Most adveturers spend their time harming others, specialy goblins, orcs and trolls. I'd define evil as "doing harm to innocents".
Best definition, though, is the one a judge did about pornography vs erotism "I recognize it when I see it"
There are plenty of 'neutral' things that offend the Paladins of the world....
... maybe if you are hiding it from your neutral teammates.
I appreciate all the perspectives offered here. They are are helpful.
To answer the "why did he do it" question, my feeling is that he wanted to eliminate future trouble (aka the thugs hunting him down for retribution) and also for convenience to simplify / control the situation. What I mean by simplify is that, yes, there is a Lawful Good character in the party (who was away with the rest of the party when this happened, keep in mind) and I think he didn't want to have to deal with the LG character insisting on hauling them into the authorities.
Additionally, I'll add that two out of the three of these thugs had thrown down their weapons and surrendered before they were knocked unconscious. Furthermore, all three were tied up with rope and locked inside a jail cell for safekeeping. The CN Rogue was just there to "keep any eye on them".
So yes, he is lying to the party about it because many/most of them are good alignments and would not approve, and he knows this.
Again, I appreciate people's opinions on this, because I'm not sure how to handle it correctly and want to be fair.
Thank you.
Well based on "why" he did it, it's a very chaotic act, and I wouldn't worry about it. Chaos and Evil are hard to distinguish often as the only difference is the motivation. In fact the original alignments were simply Lawful, Neutral, & Chaotic. Too a large degree adding Good and Evil to the mix have made things more troublesome.
A chaotic players is not going to like being forced to do something they consider stupid (ie deal with prisoners and getting them to the authorities) for no reason other than to pander to some LG bullies belief system. And, why should the rest, or any members, of the party have to bow to one character because he's chosen to be an alignment fanatic.
As a DM I rarely worry about alignment. I expect players to use it, but I never get tied up in a single act. Outside of classes that are tied to alignment, it really doesn't matter. A character can drift all over the map, and it's fine. Why would a DM making a player change an alignment on his character sheet have any real impact on the character, player, or game? Is there some penalty for play you don't like that is carryed out by "forcing" a character to have an evil alignment on their sheet?
What I would be concerned about is that you have one player that is driving the majority of your party to the point where another player had to rebel against it. Running a "good" character should not give a player the right to impose style of play on the others at the table. And, said player should be able to accept that not all characters would want to conform to his demands. I would worry that the inflexibility of the player with the "good" character is making your table a tough place to play if you don't shut up and get in line.
If the players are moving towards conflict then you need to have a dscussion with ALL your players and make sure they understand it's a game, and characters and players are not always going to agree on everything, or play the way they want them to play. You don't survive as a gaming group if you punish players every time they have their character do something that's not approved by others in the party.
Yes consistent disruptive play is an issue. But creating an environment where only one set of actions is approved is equally as wrong. You have to be flexible as a player, and flexible with the charcters to not create issues where there aren't any.
The criminals are dead the "good" characters plans have been thwarted. A good player wouldn't get all upset about it, he'd laugh at what the Rouge did, and have his character sulk all the way to the next town.
One more time...
There are no evil acts. Evil is nothing more than a total lack of compassion/empathy/ability to identify (with your captives, for example.)
Well, in Pathfinder actually there are some acts that are always evil. Animate Dead is [Evil] no matter why you are animating them. Summon Monster a Fiendish Dire Tiger is [Evil] too, no matter why you are summoning it. It says so in the rules.
Well, in Pathfinder actually there are some acts that are always evil. Animate Dead is [Evil] no matter why you are animating them. Summon Monster a Fiendish Dire Tiger is [Evil] too, no matter why you are summoning it. It says so in the rules.One more time...
There are no evil acts. Evil is nothing more than a total lack of compassion/empathy/ability to identify (with your captives, for example.)
Which is a subject we argue about often enough on the forum. We also argue about why undead are always evil(even mindless) and one day we'll all argue why the fungoid template turns you evil.(why fungus are apparently evil, I'll never know).
May not be the best examples.
Something I see a lot in these alignment debates is the argument that if execution is not evil, then killing in general is not evil. An argument frequently proposed is that if the captured individuals are being held for crimes that would get them executed by the state, then the party can execute them without any alignment issues...
I think my issue with your argument is that it is used with modern sensibility. A lot of what we perceive as good and evil is based on perspective, and it depends on the world these actions occur in.
Medieval times were gritty and life was much cheaper than it is in modern society. Criminals were often brought to "justice" by angry mobs because the law was not always easy to enforce. A fair trial by a jury of peers was a foreign concept. Even executions carried out by the law of the land were not often concerned with investigation and due process.
If your game world is set in a more gritty, savage environment, then killing criminals without turning them over (especially if you have reason to doubt the local justice system) is decidedly neutral.
That said, based on what the OP has said, in this case the rogue was acting on a murderous impulse. Here it was most certainly an evil act.
Well, in Pathfinder actually there are some acts that are always evil. Animate Dead is [Evil] no matter why you are animating them. Summon Monster a Fiendish Dire Tiger is [Evil] too, no matter why you are summoning it. It says so in the rules.One more time...
There are no evil acts. Evil is nothing more than a total lack of compassion/empathy/ability to identify (with your captives, for example.)
Which is a subject we argue about often enough on the forum. We also argue about why undead are always evil(even mindless) and one day we'll all argue why the fungoid template turns you evil.(why fungus are apparently evil, I'll never know).
May not be the best examples.
We argue if those spells *should* be evil, but we can't argue that they *are* evil. It's right behind the name of the spell in the Core Book, written inside brackets like this: [Evil]
;)
We argue if those spells *should* be evil, but we can't argue that they *are* evil. It's right behind the name of the spell in the Core Book, written inside brackets like this: [Evil]
Shh... You'll make me admit someone's right on the internet. Think of my non-existant reputation!
TL03, I didn't say that "justice" was administered by a jury. The only time I used the word "jury" was when I described paladins as generally acting as "judge, jury and executioner" which is a fairly common phrase with a specific meaning.
In medieval times mobs may have killed "criminals" but virtually every medieval society I know of still had the concept of "The King's Justice" and that frequently meant being literally brought before the KING himself for trial. That sort of "justice" goes back thousands of years. In many cases it was a crime against the King to deprive the King of the opportunity to pronounce judgment. So I don't think my take is "modern morality" based.
I do want to address this notion that there isn't much difference between "evil" and "chaotic" acts. I see this a lot, and in fact I think that's precisely where the whole stereotype of players picking "chaotic neutral" to allow them to be evil comes from.
I don't agree with the premise. Chaotic characters should be looking at their motivations based on the law<->chaos axis, which is mostly orthogonal (by design) with the good<->evil axis. Characters who are pursuing their chaotic nature should be making choices not based on "what they want" any more than any OTHER alignment makes choices based on "what they want." Chaotic motivations should be chosen to decrease the amount of social or individual constraints. Every now and then I see someone assert that chaotic neutral characters are best described as pure small-"l" libertarians, and I think that's about right. In that sense it's all about allowing individuals to CHOOSE FREELY as opposed to being forced to follow some rule or guideline. In that sense killing an innocent or helpless person is about as anti-chaotic as you can get because you've just removed every freedom that character has or is ever going to have.
Chaotic characters should be as diligent about pursuing their alignment goals as any other alignment should be. And that means they should seek to advance the goals of their alignment when possible, just as a lawful good character would. That means that personal "wants" would be subordinated to alignment goals for chaotic characters just like any other character.
The only "alignment" that truly allows a character to just "do what they want" is NO alignment.