Forcing Players to create GOOD characters...

[Altalazar]

I think what is most important is for players to play characters that are compatible as a party, not only in getting along, but in taking the direction of the party in basically the same way.

I played an evil character once - totally evil, an assassin - but I played him up as a pacifist - he pretended to be totally against harming a fly, and acted accordingly whenever he was with the party. In fact, he was using the party as a cover - a good one - and went along with whatever good deeds they did. He just did his assassinations on the side. So there were no problems with party unity, but it did make for some interesting role-playing and encounters when my character was on his own.

The only time he did anything to directly harm the party it actually killed all of them, including himself - all part of a suicide bombing, as it were, to take out a king. We were all raised from the dead, but the king was not (part of the special property of the bomb), and no one figured out what happened (except for the one who paid me for the hit).

The group NEVER figured out this character was evil - he finally died in combat in such a way that he'd not be coming back and I finally told everyone what he was really about - and they all were shocked, but also congratulated me on playing him so well. I really played up the pacifist angle to the hilt and was actually rather close to the Paladin in the party.

But as I said, the reason it worked so well was that I was super-cooperative with the rest of the party. As someone said, Evil doesn't mean psychotic, and it doesn't mean you can't cooperate in groups.

 

[Viktyr Gehrig]

My only rule regarding PC morality in most cases is that the party more or less works together and there's no intra-party violence. I have never been in a game of backstabbing PCs where more than one person had fun, and I am simply not interested in that kind of game for much more than a session or two.

On the other hand, I allow anyone to play whatever alignment they like, and I only enforce "alignment rules" for beings with very specific moral requirements-- Paladins, Blackguards, and Clerics of deities or alignments. (Clerics of a philosophy require similar devotion, but it is less attached to alignment.)

In my current game, we have a good mix of Good, Evil, and Neutral characters-- most of which have a solid reason for staying with the party. We have a Good amnesiac, who sticks to the Evil character (an insane, telepathic little girl) because she seems familiar to him, and is a link to his past life. The other Good character is with the party as an act of penitence-- he is exposing himself to horror and cruelty, as well as attempting to redeem the other characters. The two Neutrals are mercenaries, craving both compansionship and coin. The dynamics are entertaining, and the players are doing very well at keeping both to their alignments and their character concepts-- which has caused some conflict.

 

[Desdichado]

I think alignment is a bad idea no matter how you implement it. No, seriously!

 

[Spatula]

Except for the fact that a good deal of the magic system is built around the alignment system. And you can't expect the characters to be balanced if you strip away all of their "detect alignment" and "protections from X" spells.

Bah. A handful of spells is a "good deal" of D&D magic? Removing alignment from the game is trivially easy. And I don't think that I've ever seen a detect alignment spell cast in a D&D game.

 

[Al]

Actually, *any* alignment can be made to work given good players and the right circumstances. Not only does evil not equal psychotic, chaotic evil doesn't equal psychotic either.

Chaotic evil means that the character is acting for the fulfilment of one thing: himself (or herself). There are no ties, no allegiances, no lasting friendships*, no adherence to laws unless it benefits him. Now, this can be made to work. So long as staying peaceful and in the party is in the CE character's interest, there is no reason why he should be disruptive. Far from being psychotic or unstable, CE can be the most rational of alignment if played under one interpretation: pure mechanistic analysis of self-interest without the confines of ethics, morality or codes of conduct.

If self-interest means staying with the party (in e.g. Zorbonian City States as outlined by Teflon Billy) then so be it.

The problem with evil characters is more often the players. I once ran an evil campaign where most of the players were around 13/14 a few years ago, and it was a total disaster. PCs killing PCs in their sleep, the party rogue trying to steal the wizard's stuff only to set off magical traps, mid-combat defections, etc. Evil can be made to work; more often than not, alignment restrictions do not reflect a poor *DM*, but the anticipation of poor *players* (but then again, as a DM, I'd probably be biased).

(*CE characters can have friends...but only because they derive pleasure from having friends for social or other reasons...as soon as they become bored of a 'friend' or no longer find him conducive to their pleasure, they have no moral qualms about cutting him loose.)

 

[Particle_Man]

Actually, *any* alignment can be made to work given good players and the right circumstances. Not only does evil not equal psychotic, chaotic evil doesn't equal psychotic either.

Chaotic evil means that the character is acting for the fulfilment of one thing: himself (or herself). There are no ties, no allegiances, no lasting friendships*, no adherence to laws unless it benefits him. Now, this can be made to work. So long as staying peaceful and in the party is in the CE character's interest, there is no reason why he should be disruptive. Far from being psychotic or unstable, CE can be the most rational of alignment if played under one interpretation: pure mechanistic analysis of self-interest without the confines of ethics, morality or codes of conduct.



(*CE characters can have friends...but only because they derive pleasure from having friends for social or other reasons...as soon as they become bored of a 'friend' or no longer find him conducive to their pleasure, they have no moral qualms about cutting him loose.)

That is not CE; that is NE.

 

[Altalazar]

That is not CE; that is NE.

I think that would work for CE - which brings to mind a problem if it doesn't - there are a lot of creatures in the MM that you find in groups that are CE - there has to be some basis for cooperation there, otherwise when you encountered them there'd be just as much chance they'd attack each other as them attacking the PCs.

 

[Madfox]

Doesn't the main problem stems from different opinions on what action belongs to what alignment? Several of the examples given in this thread are more neutral in my opinion then evil (e.g. the so-called lawful evil warlord whose name was cleared by his paladin buddy). Since there is little discussion on the extremes of alignments, most DMs prefer to set down those alignment restrictions to prevent long winded discusions on whether something was evil or neutral.

Personally, I tend to limit alignment to good only as well, especially when I don't really know the players involved. Perhaps this due to some very bad experiences with these so-called evil characters (never met a player who could portay a chaotic neutral character to my satisfaction) and perhaps it is because I personally feel more comfortable running and playing in heroic campaigns. It certainly has NOTHING to do with me being a control freak. Even then, I might allow a player to try to play neutrals or evils if they came with a good concept. I prefer to work with what the player wants If there is one thing I will never accept: a character concept that will ultimately lead to violence within the party. That just ruins the fun for all involved. I have no problems with a bit of friction (though even that can get out of hand), but basically characters within one group should get along. I just cannot imagine a good character being able to be able to stay with an openly evil character.

 

[DragonLancer]

I prefer my players play good or neutral alignments; mainly because a lot of players think that Evil means "backstab your fellow party members at the first opportunity."

Amen. This is my opinion. Far too often I have had players just backstab and screw over each other. I did run a one-off scenario in my last campaign so that the players could play minions of an organised group the good PC's were struggling against. They were told from the get go that they worked together and that they all shared a common goal. Not an hour into the game three of the characters were dead, killed by their allies in the party.

I'm sure some groups can pull it off but none that I have ever gamed with.

Other than that, I believe that D&D is about HEROIC fantasy. That means no evil characters, and any PC who should slip into evil alignment becomes an NPC under my control.

Evil is what the characters should be fighting against.

 

[CCamfield]

He probably does.
The reasons he gives in Arcana Unearthed for not using alignment are really dumb though (eg: If you use alignment, there's only nine possible personalities for characters; if you use alignment, a good person never has conflicts with any other good person, etc).

Well, it may be specious, but I do think that can lead to such thinking by some people. I have seen arguments about how good people can't conflict with each other. The fact is that alignment definition can outshine personality sometimes. Once you put aside you can concentrate on the fact that, say, a good king has a weakness of greed, which could lead him to do some nasty things, et cetera. I mean concentrate more on personality traits, in other words.