Players Actions:
In the span of 2 sessions CN Neutral Rogue has so far stabbed an unarmed halfling in an attempt to get informationew (no hesitation or remorse), wanted to kill an unarmed and tied up half orc ranger, when that wasn't successful she robbed him of an ancestral dagger/armor and half his money(no hestation or remorse.)
The Question:
This to me is on it's way to evil, how many more acts until I change her alignment?
Bonus Questions:
How would you tell her she has had her alignment changed?
Would it be to much for the Ranger to seek retribution and if he captures her, chop of her hands Code of Hammurabi status?
I don’t have all the information but from the sound of it you may be going a little too black or white. While these acts defiantly not good, I am not sure that they are evil enough to cause an alignment shift. The neutral alignments should not be a walk on the razors edge. Would you have been as quick to change his alignment if he had been doing good deeds?
Chaotic Neutral is often called chaotic selfish. They are all about getting what they want regardless of how it affects others. The chaotic evil character goes out of his way to cause harm and suffering and enjoys it. In both cases the rogue was looking to maximize his own profit at the expense of others. I would consider both of these as neutral with evil overtones instead of straight out evil.
Chaotic neutral is not a heroic alignment and often causes problems in a campaign. This is one reason that I require characters to be of good alignment in the games I run. If you are going to allow chaotic (Selfish) neutral characters especially rogues you need to be prepared for them to do bad things. As long as the character balances out most of his bad things with some good he probably has not gone evil. Even the occasional outright evil act should be permeated as long as he occasionally does good acts.
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You don't.
This isn't a "7 transgressions and I will punish you by making you evil!" kind of thing. Don't play it like that.
Talk to the player. Tell him that his roleplaying is making you think he is more evil than neutral and the TWO of you decide what his alignment should really be. There are a few outcomes of this discussion:
1. He insists he's just being Chaotic Neutral. Then directly inform him that, sure, he's definitely chaotic but describe the things YOU feel were evil rather than merely neutral. Tell him that he needs to stop doing those things if he wants to justify his CN alignment, or see below.
2. He says "Wow, you're right, I am playing more like CE - I better stop!" Problem solved, assuming he does.
3. He says "Wow, you're right, I am playing more like CE - I better change my character sheet to show my true alignment." Problem solved. Now you both agree that he's CE and you can run the game accordingly.
Side note: many players, often the less skilled and/or less mature, think "chaotic neutral" is a license to be totally evil and use their CN alignment as an excuse. "I'm just being chaotic" or "I'm CN; I can do whatever I want" are common excuses. Help this player understand the difference and then help him decide what he wants his character to be, THEN pick the alignment that suits the character he wants to play.
Alignment in Ultimate Campaign
Scroll down to the bottom "Changing Alignments" and you have some good mechanical guidelines if you want.
Alignment in Ultimate Campaign
Scroll down to the bottom "Changing Alignments" and you have some good mechanical guidelines if you want.
Yes, unfortunately that stuff from UltimateCampaign is there. It's in the SRD too.
What they don't say is that using this on your players like a weapon, or like a punishment, will very likely cause huge amounts of aggravation and animosity at the game table and break down much trust between the GM and his players. Bad idea.
However, talking up front to your players and saying "Hey, this cool alignment slider thing from Ultimate Campaign sounds fun. What do you guys think, should we try it?" and then only use it when your players agree (as a player, I would not, but then I'm very much anti-alignment; some players might like this approach).
#1 Thanks for the input everyone. This is my DM sounding board because the other DM's I know are players in this game.
I haven't made any changes to her character, nor would I. I also feel like this is neutral with evil overtones, but the trend is there.
A couple of clarifying points that I should have included in my original post.
-This is a new player to our group and I gather that in her past groups they murder hobo'd about in all there campaigns, so it may be due to adjustment.
-There was a "Session 0" where alignment was discussed and there is an understanding that it is a liquid thing with benefits and consequences.
Also, while I have your attention here is a wall of text:
The group was heading through a forest from point A on one side to Town B on the other. During a rainy night they heard wold howls and prepared for a possible encounter.
(This may be dirty on my part but I set this as a way to see what the party would do)
Wolves showed up and the character's started shooting as soon as they could make them out. The wolves moved away, but bows can shoot a decent distance. The wolves attempted to defend themselves but we're killed. Hearing the sounds of hurt animals a Ranger shows up and fires a s$@% and yells at the players (everyone failed perceptions) they attacked and "captured the ranger.
When he awoke he was upset as the wolves were actually domesticated. Everyone but the rogue decided to help bury the wolves in an attempt to reconcile. She left to go rob his camp. The ranger will notice this.
Should he come after her and demand recompense?
The wolves attempted to defend themselves but we're killed.
I cannot for the life of me get a mental image of how wolves would do this. Other than running very far away (which I would call fleeing rather than defending). Did they have shields? Did one of them cast Entropic Shield?
Just kidding. The wording of that sentence tickled a funny bone.
Bone.
Good thing there's no wolves around here. Anymore...
Should he come after her and demand recompense?
Yes.
YES.
.
Why?
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.
(it applies to neutral thieves, too)
Or, to put it another way, if this character does naughty stuff (I say "naughty" to mean stuff that other people don't like without using an actual game term alignment) and just gets away with it, eventually this will spiral so far out of control that it won't be a game anymore. It will be the "Watch her jack up every NPC in the world and grow rich and powerful in the process" show.
I know you won't let it get that far.
So nip it in the bud. Here. Now. Before it even starts spiraling.
Demonstrate to this player that ALL actions have consequences. Hopefully both the player and the PC will figure it out.
So the players encountered some “domesticated” wolves in a forest and killed them? Then a ranger shows up and attacks the party because they killed the wolves? If the ranger is the one who tamed the wolves then I can understand him attacking. The whole encounter was a pretty poorly designed.
Wanting to kill someone who attacks you first is not an evil act. That would be squarely in the chaotic neutral alignment. Stealing his stuff is petty, but not evil.
I don’t know how much you know about wolves, but it is generally accepted that they cannot be domesticated. Numerous studies have been done and the wolves still retain their predatory instincts. Domestication is a process that takes multiple generations to achieve. Domesticated wolves are called dogs. Wolves lose the ability to bark after reaching maturity. The current theory is that the domesticated dog is a decedent of a perpetually adolescent wolf. These wolves were not acting they way a wolf would. If they were not hungry they would have stayed away.
@DM_Blake: I haven't been proof reading my posts, so yeah at second glance I can see how that is confusing and unclear. You got it right, though about the fleeing. Again, thanks for the input.
@Mysterious Stranger: I appreciate the input on real behaviors and will consider them for use in the future. We'll just say my fantasy wolves are different from real world wolves. In my head (and on his sheet) the Ranger had a wolf as its companion and had trained the others to patrol an area and investigate then signal if they found something (Imagine Chis Pratts characer from Jurassic World). Mechanically to back this up he had an item he could use to cast "speak with animals" so in my head it works out.
You are correct and I agree defending yourself isn't evil and in this case the theft was more petty than evil. If this behavior continues though, what would you do Stranger, in game and out?
Like I said in my games I only allow good characters for precisely this reason. The games I want to run are those of hero’s not murder hobo’s. Since the people I game with are ok with this it does not create problems. Be honest with your players as to the type of game you want to run.
If you are going to allow neutral characters in the game you are going to have to accept that their behavior is often going to be questionable and sometimes down right evil. They should not be punished or censored for doing evil any more than they should be for doing good. Neutral characters are not good, they can do bad thing without feeling any remorse or guilt. If the majority of their actions fall under evil, and they don’t bother with any good deeds then they are evil.
Another thing is the fact he is playing a rogue. In the old days the rogue was called a thief and that is the way some people like to run them. When a character plays a chaotic neutral rogue it’s pretty clear that they are not going to be the type to respect personal property or the rights of others. This character is going to be all about what they can get out of life. They are going to be greedy, petty, self-centered, and probably a little vengeful. If this is not the type of character you are comfortable with than you should talk to the player about it.
As to the wolves a ranger being able to tame wolves is fine, but they are still wild animals. Wolvers have been a fascination for me so I know more about them than most. A wolf would have stayed well back and probably never been seen unless there was a character with a high perception roll with low light vision. Even then they would have spread out and come from different angles instead of being all bunch up.
If you are having problems with a character for any reason the first step is to talk to the player about it. Don’t punish them without hearing their reasoning. Their idea about good and evil may be different than yours. Also avoid setting “tests” for the party, this only leads to problems. The one exception would be if one of the characters is playing a paladin, but even then it should be used sparingly and be clear without ambiguity.
One thing I usually do is have the party supported and usually funded by an organization. In my campaigns it is always a good organization. This not only sets the tone for the campaign, but also helps keep down inappropriate character classes. If the organization is the church of Iomedae then the chaotic neutral rogue would probably not even be in the party. It all comes back to the idea of being honest with your players.
If you are going to allow neutral characters in the game you are going to have to accept that their behavior is often going to be questionable and sometimes down right evil.
I wholeheartedly disagree with this.
Neutral, even CN, is not about "Well, I did a good thing last week so I guess I can do an evil thing this week to balance the scales."
There is absolutely NO reason to believe that a neutral person will do evil things some of the time. If that's true, then they're evil. Sometimes they're NOT doing evil things, but because they WANT to do it sometimes, and because they actually DO it sometimes, they're evil.
They should not be punished or censored for doing evil any more than they should be for doing good.
They actually should be doing NEUTRAL things. Murdering helpless captives (or even suggesting it) is not a NEUTRAL thing, it's evil. Only evil people do that.
Neutral characters are not good, they can do bad thing without feeling any remorse or guilt.
Bad things, maybe, but not evil things. Neutral people don't like doing evil things.
If the majority of their actions fall under evil, and they don’t bother with any good deeds then they are evil.
Again, it's not a scale to be balanced. "Hey, 7 good things this month and only 5 evil things? Welllll, I better go do some evil stuff!" It just doesn't work that way.
Another thing is the fact he is playing a rogue. In the old days the rogue was called a thief and that is the way some people like to run them. When a character plays a chaotic neutral rogue it’s pretty clear that they are not going to be the type to respect personal property or the rights of others. This character is going to be all about what they can get out of life. They are going to be greedy, petty, self-centered, and probably a little vengeful. If this is not the type of character you are comfortable with than you should talk to the player about it.
Now this I fully agree with.
Nevertheless, stealing from people is a good way to get in trouble. Sometimes it works, sometimes you make enemies. A PC should not have total freedom to take whatever, whenever, without expecting retribution - especially when they're obvious about what they did and when they did it.
Thank you again guys (?).
I've been DM'ING for a bit and I just may have always inadvertently had groups like yours Stranger, where everyone agreed on good. We have talked before I posted the original question and since and she understands that actions have consequences and while only a couple acts have been "evil" she may be in danger of really jeopardizing her and the groups experience (as they were unaware and characters that she stole the ancestral knife.)
Again, super appreciative of the feedback.
No one is 100%% good, or a 100% evil. Even the worst villain has some good in them, and even the most pure person has some evil in them. The majority of people are pretty well a mixture of good and evil, law and chaos. Neutrality is the middle ground between the extremes, the grey area where most of us live.
It’s actually a lot harder to be good than it is evil. Evil acts are incredibly easy to do, and often the person doing it does not realize they are doing it. Good acts on the other hand are a lot harder to do. If the only reason you are doing the good act is for your own self-interests, it’s not really a good act. For example if a rich person gives a lot of money to charity because of the benefits here receives from it that is not really a good act no matter how much he gives. On the other hand the poor person giving his last dollar to help someone in true need is definitely a good act.
DM Blake is right that it is not a balancing act that you say I did so many evil things so now I have to do good things to balance it. The very fact that you are trying to balance the scales invalidates the good deeds you are doing. It’s more a matter of looking at the whole picture and of how the person acts and treats others.
My point is that it takes more than one action to shift your alignment. Your alignment is the based on all your actions not just a single action. Other than some epic evil actions like killing off large groups of people alignment shifts should be gradual.
I also agree that the actions of a character should have consequences. While the player is free to do what he wants he also should have to deal with the fallout of his choices.