What is your alignment?

[AndrewDB]

An unaligned individual may not go out of his way to help someone else. If he knows of a planned robbery or murder, that doesn't affect him, then he's likely to let what happens, happen. If there's a reward for the capture of the criminal, it's a relative who is the target, or he thinks that he might be the next on the list, then he'd report it.

I don't believe most of us are disagreeing with the statement above. I certainly don't believe that going out of your way to prevent potential evil is required in order to avoid being considered evil yourself; especially if you’re fearful of retaliating villains. If you’re not concerned by retaliating villains though, warning someone might be required in order to avoid being considered a terrible person, and possibly responsible for part of the crime in the eyes of the law, but not quite evil.

But doing something evil yourself is still evil, even if doing so was easy or convenient (in which case you would be considered lazy and evil, not unaligned). You're probably evil if you planned a robbery (or robbed a store for cool stuff during a riot), or murdered someone. Maybe not evil incarnate in each case, but you’re more evil than unaligned. If you fall into an evil act unintentionally, then you could claim to be unaligned without contest. Intent is key though, not simply ease of action.

It may not seem balanced, but I would say you need to go out of your way and intend to do good before you’re aligned as such, but merely make a conscious decision and intend to do evil before your aligned as such. The reason is that it’s generally in your best interest to be good and therefore the median point within unaligned falls closer to good.

 

[AndrewDB]

Or they could have done the expedient thing in order to protect their own freedom, which was to kill the person who threatened it,

Protecting freedom sounds ever so majestic and good. However, killing someone in order to avoid negative legal or social consequences isn’t a matter of protecting your freedom; it’s a matter of greed. Freedom was never dependant on fair compensation. Killing someone because you want more wealth is evil. Killing someone because they want to hold you accountable for your actions is evil.

We also need to avoid applying the values of modern western democracy onto certain fantasy settings. The concept of freedom as a basic human right isn't timeless or universal. The case of the halfling being enslaved might be considered fair and good if the halfling legitimately owed a sum equal to a lifetime of wages. Not that I know of any modern western democracy that excuses murderers who were simply trying to avoid jail time or felt unfairly compensated.

That is not to say that killing is always evil. Murder is almost always evil; murder defined as premeditated killing, especially killing someone who posed no imminent risk of death. Threatening to hold you accountable to the law is not equivalent to threatening you with imminent death, and does not excuse killing someone or transform evil into unaligned. Giving someone the option between death or turning a blind eye to theft does not turn the decision to murder (evil) into self defense or unintentional manslaughter (unaligned).

 

[SigmaX0]

Just to clarify a few more things:

The Dragonborn didn't just burn the teamster's corpse, I may have gotten carried away with my narrative, I meant to say he just finished the guy off after the fighter had stabilised him.

As for not killing the teamster, I should make it clear, the guy left us with only the option of killing him or letting him turn us in. The DM deliberately made him the most extreme uncomprimising b*&%ard to see what we would do.

Question about theft: is it still theft if we technically stole it back off the goblins who had already stolen it, and gave half of it back to the town? To reiterate, without our intervention, the town would have got nothing.

 

[Ryujin]

For those who don't agree with my logic rather than reply individually, I'll try to make one post to explain my position. If you still don't agree with it then fine, but at least you might be able to understand the underlying logic.

Try putting aside all of the social constructs and see it from a natural law standpoint. Are hyenas evil when they steal a kill? If you try to cage a pack of wolves and are the only thing between them and freedom, wouldn't they take you down?

In a system that allows for shades of gray, you can't use black and white concepts. Selfish doesn't, by necessity, mean evil.

 

[theshard]

Protecting freedom sounds ever so majestic and good. However, killing someone in order to avoid negative legal or social consequences isn’t a matter of protecting your freedom; it’s a matter of greed. Freedom was never dependant on fair compensation. Killing someone because you want more wealth is evil. Killing someone because they want to hold you accountable for your actions is evil.

We also need to avoid applying the values of modern western democracy onto certain fantasy settings. The concept of freedom as a basic human right isn't timeless or universal. The case of the halfling being enslaved might be considered fair and good if the halfling legitimately owed a sum equal to a lifetime of wages. Not that I know of any modern western democracy that excuses murderers who were simply trying to avoid jail time or felt unfairly compensated.

That is not to say that killing is always evil. Murder is almost always evil; murder defined as premeditated killing, especially killing someone who posed no imminent risk of death. Threatening to hold you accountable to the law is not equivalent to threatening you with imminent death, and does not excuse killing someone or transform evil into unaligned. Giving someone the option between death or turning a blind eye to theft does not turn the decision to murder (evil) into self defense or unintentional manslaughter (unaligned).

This is well stated and along the lines of what I was going to say but was at work and couldn't put that much into it at the time.

Just to clarify a few more things:

The Dragonborn didn't just burn the teamster's corpse, I may have gotten carried away with my narrative, I meant to say he just finished the guy off after the fighter had stabilised him.

As for not killing the teamster, I should make it clear, the guy left us with only the option of killing him or letting him turn us in. The DM deliberately made him the most extreme uncomprimising b*&%ard to see what we would do.

Question about theft: is it still theft if we technically stole it back off the goblins who had already stolen it, and gave half of it back to the town? To reiterate, without our intervention, the town would have got nothing.

Even ignoring everything else, the dragonborn has now done an unquestionably evil act by killing someone that was unconcious, helpless and posed no threat to himself or his friends. You had a lot of other options than killing him or letting him turn you in. You just had to think of other ways to approach the problem at hand.

As previously stated, 4e has no penalties for evil acts regardless of class, alignment, or religion but any DM I have played under would rule this act as evil (except for maybe the fighter who tried to help and save the old man). While being evil does not effect your character stats, the roleplaying implications could be profound and could complicate your future adventuring career.

 

[Ryujin]

I'll give you an unquestioned evil act that our group performed. Does anyone remember the water room in "Siege"? Well Kalad pulled the level because he thought that we were taking too long, while one of our members was hanging from a rope and being plunked at by the invaders. He was the last one up the ladder to the exit, in true Paladinly fashion, so for his trouble we slammed the trap door, jammed it closed, and Arcan Locked it.

THAT is an evil act and as he was later raised, we're paying for it in reputation. It certainly creates a lot of chances for role play though, as our fighter goes around bellowing a song about "Kalad the Cowardly Paladin" at the top of his lungs wherever we go.

 

[SigmaX0]

Ok, I think you've misunderstood slightly again. To clarify: the teamster was not unconscious.

The teamster was posing a threat to us, because he was going to ensure that we were imprisoned. Long-term imprisonment is a threat to any person in my view.

I think, given the broad range of mitigating factors here, this is a questionable act of evil.

Consider again, without us, the teamster would be dead, and his entire shipment lost.

Most people in that situation would be grateful towards their rescuers.

As I mentioned before, the DM gave us no choice other than let him turn us in, or kill him. I suppose we could have imprisoned him, but that would have been tantamount to killing him since we were in goblin and troll infested woods.

I'm not interested in the statistical detriments here, i'm just pointing out that it's a difficult moral dilemma.

 

[theshard]

Ok, I think you've misunderstood slightly again. To clarify: the teamster was not unconscious.

The teamster was posing a threat to us, because he was going to ensure that we were imprisoned. Long-term imprisonment is a threat to any person in my view.

I think, given the broad range of mitigating factors here, this is a questionable act of evil.

Consider again, without us, the teamster would be dead, and his entire shipment lost.

Most people in that situation would be grateful towards their rescuers.

As I mentioned before, the DM gave us no choice other than let him turn us in, or kill him. I suppose we could have imprisoned him, but that would have been tantamount to killing him since we were in goblin and troll infested woods.

I'm not interested in the statistical detriments here, i'm just pointing out that it's a difficult moral dilemma.

Being imprisoned does not justify murder.

 

[Ryujin]

Being imprisoned does not justify murder.

Well not to a good person anyway.

 

[Garthanos]

Well not to a good person anyway.

Nor is it a difficult morale dilemma either which is the thinking I find frightening.