<>How much evil could good endure before becoming evil?

[I'm A Banana]

I'm still trying to work out a balance between his desire to remain a good person and the desire to express his righteous anger.

You can be angry at people without denying their essential humanity (or elfity or dwarfity or whatever).

The line that I usually draw is: "Would you want this to happen to yourself or someone you cared about?" If the answer is "Yes," the action might be Good. If the answer is "No, but that's the way the world works," it might be Neutral. If the answer is "Absolutely not," then it is probably Evil. It's obviously not a hard-and-fast rule, but it governs the campaign pretty well.

 

[RandomPrecision]

Out of curiosity, has anyone ever tried an alignment system similar to Neverwinte Nights? Characters have a starting alignment, which gives them a specific alignment score. I think neutrals are 50, and the extremes are 15 and 85. Now, actions that require a moral or ethical choice affect the alignment score, so a neutral good wizard would begin with Lawful-50 and Good-85, but committing an evil action would lower his good score. If he is particularly brutal, we might subtract 10 points. If he does something of that magnitude again, it will put him below 66, changing his alignment to true neutral.

I personally just ask the players. If they're behaving relatively close to their alignment, that's groovy. But if a lawful character starts acting very chaotically, I might point that out OOC sometime, and ask if they no longer wish to be lawful. I typically don't like to interrupt the RP to adjucate alignment changes.

 

[LightPhoenix]

One thing I will mention: the idea that not doing the act personally somehow lessens the impact of what happens (in a moral sense) is not a good one. If anything it adds a certain base, craven form of cowardice to the act. Someone he hires brutalizes his enemy while he sips wine, thinking his soft, sullied hands are clean? No, that's the way of mob bosses and politicians.

That's also acting on those impulses. If merely thinking something bad merited a crisis of alignment, people would be paralyzed. But that wanders into philosophical tangents. Suffice it to say, hiring someone to torture someone, or standing by while his group does it, or deliberately leaving him in a situation so as to knowingly lead to torture is certainly acting on that impulse, and thus merits some sort of crisis.

Now, the interesting question is this - will the authorities torture the prisoner? If the paladin knows there will, then you have a real moral dilemma on your hands. Either way the paladin will have to compromise his code in some way.

 

[aceofgames]

A alignment shift may be in order, but only if he decides to start skinning the guy alives (since wizards can do that).

However, the depth of his character apparently, is growing due to this new anger. He would probably need to do something real-life people usually do at such points- seek his spiritual advisor. Spending time with an actually wise person, one who can tell him right from wrong, could make an awesome roleplaying opportunity, and a even better encounter if he chooses to visit the priest of his deity.

 

[FreeTheSlaves]

My general approach to alignment change when I dm is that it changes when there is no doubt in my mind. It won't come as a surprise & any 'argument' against my ruling is easily refuted.

Except for alignment based characters & the new alignment being opposed to the group, there shouldn't be any problem with alignment change, it is normal & I expect it - just like resurrection.

 

[S'mon]

Torturing for personal satisfaction is not NG - NG is the Benthamite Utilitarian alignment (IMO). LG might hand over to the authorities, while NGs would not hand him over to the authorities unless _more good_ could be accomplished that way (eg he has info the authorities could use to save lives. The NG thing to do would be to kill him swiftly. The only NG way to justify torture would be if more good could be accomplished that way. I think this character is Neutral with Good tendencies.

 

[BlackSilver]

The wizard was rescued/saved by the Half Orc more times then he could ever count, and was abused by him verbally and berated by him. He didn’t view the Half Orc as a real friend until he was gone.

Seems to be a little close to a story I once heard from you before in some other thread. :\

Your wizard should go after the assassin, if given the chance to murder him- don't.

The dead do not care, they are dead. Let his memory rest knowing you have not gone into evil for a memory.

 

[ARandomGod]

First of all, as an alignment question, this is of course going to be controversial.

Second of all. ... This is not a good/evil world. There is a neutral middle ground. And a neutral person can do a LOT of evil. Assuming he also does a lot of good, he's still neutral. It's not all black and white, they're all shades of grey. (If they're too black or white, you have to kill them.)

 

[kolikeos]

hmmm... i don't have much to say except that i like this thread and would like to see the outcome of that wizards quest for revenge

 

[Angel Tarragon]

Constantly warding/protecting yourself from Evil could make a person snap, mentally speaking. This premise is used in Charmed to make the story interesting. Little baby Wyatt has so much magical energy that so many evil people want it. Even though he is a baby he has the ability to erect a shield around himself whenever attacked and even has enough power to kill/vanquish demons.

The producers used this premise. In an alternate (future) timeline Wyatt had had enough and decided: To heck with it. He shifted to evil and to prevent that from happening his yet unborn brother came back from the future to protect him from becoming evil. Chris ended sacrificing himself in the past to prevent his (baby) brother from becoming evil. He succedded.