What does "Always" mean with regards to alignment descriptions?

[Celebrim]

90-95%. It's meant to be a definite rarity, but having anything without exceptions is utterly, utterly boring.

But to have everything have exceptions is equally boring. If most things have exceptions then the ordinary thing is to be diverse, the exceptional thing is for it to not have exceptions. To truly have the full span of diversity, you must have something for which diversity is alien.

I read never as like 99.9999999%. The exception is so rare that it may never occur for that particular species in the lifetime of creation. I read always as 'the probability is very very close to 1', where 'very very close' is defined how a mathimatician might define an interval arbitrarily close to one. That's how I read 'overwhelming majority'. Ninety percent is far from an overwhelming majority. Ninety percent means exceptions are common and indeed reutine.

 

[wingsandsword]

Ninety percent is far from an overwhelming majority. Ninety percent means exceptions are common and indeed reutine.

Personally, I would call 90% an overwhelming majority. If 90% of the public agreed on an issue, the term "overwhelming majority" would probably be used in the media.

The way I see it, any intelligent, free-willed being has some flexibility in alignment. Now, by genetics they might have a tendency to certain behaviors (just as certain breeds of dogs are known for being more friendly, or more hostile, like that but moreso since all dogs have Neutral alignment), and culture goes a long way (being raised in the Cult of Tiamat is probably not conducive to developing a Good alignment), it's not like it's inherent to the creature itself.

For a creature that is "Always Chaotic Evil" like some types of Dragon. I'd say that 90% are Chaotic Evil, 4% are Chaotic Neutral, 4% are Neutral Evil, 1.5% are either Neutral Good, True Neutral or Lawful Neutral, and 0.5% are Lawful Good. Therefore by far, most of them are Chaotic Evil, and most of the ones that aren't are only one "step" away (and for most intents and purposes, PC's won't notice the difference between a Neutral Evil and Chaotic Evil dragon, or even a True Neutral dragon if it's only one encounter and the dragon has a reason to be hostile like armed adventurers kicking down the door to his lair), and dragons that have alignments so different that their behavior would clearly stand out as abnormal would be pretty rare indeed (and PC's used to dragons ).

Now, I personally voted for the first option, but almost third option. Fiends are just plain evil by nature and undead rely on a force that is destruction incarnate and naturally affiliated with evil to exist. Fiends are evil physically incarnate, and exceptions for those are far rarer than anything else (and exceptions for undead are only a little more common). Now, there are a handful of possible exceptions of a redeemed fiend (or fallen celestial) in existing canon so it's possible (but far more unlikely than a Good Orc, or a Good Dragon, or even a Good Illithid), or the cliche of the "good vampire", but they are so rare that you could count all the ones in existence on one hand.

 

[Shin Okada]

Per RAW. There can be exceptions. But when a race is "Always Evil", even neutral ones are 1% or even 0.1% minority who do not fit really well amongst that race's community (if any). And good one will be a one-in-the-history thingy which almost no one in the universe will believe that such a creature exists.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I picked the 3rd option, though I probably DM more like the first.

I can see that some kinds of creatures- demons, for instance, might be completely unable to change their alignment. They embody that alignment, it is as much a part of them as their ichor.

OTOH, they may still be able to change their alignment, but the change would involve strong magic and possibly a metamorphosis into something else- a demon who becomes good might be considered an angel...with all the mechanical changes that entails.

 

[Celebrim]

Personally, I would call 90% an overwhelming majority.

If just 10% of the population are in rebellion, a society collapses. You don't say 'the overwhelming majority of people are right handed'.

If 90% of the public agreed on an issue, the term "overwhelming majority" would probably be used in the media.

Yes, but the media are such complete idiots I could rest my case with that alone.

The way I see it, any intelligent, free-willed being has some flexibility in alignment.

Err... first of all, that's not true. There are a number of cases where we could have an intelligent, free-willed being be certainly constant in their alignment. All we have to do is assume that the creature has non-human attributes. For example, the creature might possess perfect violition - meaning that unlike me and you it never fails to do what it wants to do because some part of its being rebels and decides to watch TV instead of say studying for that exam it really wants to pass. Such a being would have a constancy of behavior that humans wouldn't have, in that it would truly always be acting to achieve the thing it wants most. Or for example, the being could be so intelligent that it always sees the end results of its actions, and hense despite having free will always chooses to do the same thing every time even knowing the outcome. Such a being never has regrets. Once its chosen something based on its desires, it always chooses that same thing. Or we might have an intelligent being that has an emotional and goal structure utterly incomprihensible to humans. For example, the being might be literally physically incapable of feeling tenderness or sympathy for anything. It's still has free will, and could choose to be nice, but it never actually desires to be nice, and so never actually chooses it. Or again, it might be phyisically impossible for a creature to become angry, as the necessary mental path ways simply didn't exist. However provoked, it might never desire to lash back. If you punched it, it might apologize for putting its face in front of your hand. If you did it again, it might realize that for some unfathomable (to it) reason you were trying to put your fist forcibly in its face and try to evade, but it would never desire to strike back in return because it lacked any emotional basis for doing so. Such a being is fully intelligent. It could explain its thinking and motivations to you, but you'd never (as a human) really be able to understand how it felt because any attempt to put yourself in its shoes would result in an error of reasoning.

Which is effectively the error I think you are making here - trying to put yourself in 'the Dragon's Shoes' as if the dragon and everything else in the universe that did or might exist worked, thinked, and felt just like you do.

But even if I can't convince you of that, consider what you are saying again with a different emphasis:

The way I see it, any intelligent, free-willed being has some flexibility in alignment.

- emphasis mine

Any in that context means 'every'. So what you are arguing is things are most logical (and presumably most interesting, since its our imagination at play here) when there is no diversity. Everything is just exactly the same, and fundamentally acts and thinks like a human regardless of shape, regardless of biology, regardless of spiritual origin.

I find that utterly unfathomable. The idea that in the full range of not only what could exist in this crazily huge universe, but in any imaginable universe, everything would be basically human in nature and demeanor strikes me as utterly unbelievable.

For a creature that is "Always Chaotic Evil" like some types of Dragon. I'd say that 90% are Chaotic Evil, 4% are Chaotic Neutral, 4% are Neutral Evil, 1.5% are either Neutral Good, True Neutral or Lawful Neutral, and 0.5% are Lawful Good.

It's an imaginary creature, so there is no wrong answer here, but I'd put those numbers too high by a factor of at least a 100 in the case of one step removed from the main alignment, and by a factor of more than a million in the case of the opposite alignment. In the case of a planeborn creature, even that level of frequency would be too high for me, but we at least seem to agree on that.

 

[pawsplay]

In my view, an [Evil] creature is different in that it never feels a natural inclination to do good. It has no altruism. A [Good] creature does not experience temptation. Rather, when such a creature violates its alignment, or even adopts a new alignment, it is always a deliberate, willful decision. A [Good] creature deciding to act evilly goes against its own inclinations and makes a decision to be less happy.

For other creatures, I just assume that natural tendencies, culture, the attention of deities, and metaphysical affinities are what creates those "Always" alignments. I think the weakest case are the dragons, but the game designers felt the dragons have some kind of metaphysical alignment, and perhaps are further influenced by Bahamut and Tiamat. I think in my mind, dragons are (almost) always X alignment. Call it 99%, and there aren't that many dragons.

 

[Jeff Wilder]

I voted the first option. In addition to being RAW, I find it most interesting. I'm not a huge fan of omnipresent moral ambiguity, but I'm even less a fan of strict binary morality.

I think even [evil] creatures can be redeemed and claim another alignment, but I don't think that sheds the [evil] descriptor. (So a CG vrock would ping under both detect evil and detect good.) I like the idea of creatures being literally spawned of the raw stuff of evil.

In fact, I think 3.5 dropped the ball pretty hard on this, when they altered undead like skeletons and zombies to be of evil alignment. All they had to do was give undead the [evil] descriptor, and voila ... you can have undead of any alignment (including neutral, for mindless undead). And no need for that "deathless" mega-crap!

 

[Hypersmurf]

In fact, I think 3.5 dropped the ball pretty hard on this, when they altered undead like skeletons and zombies to be of evil alignment. All they had to do was give undead the [evil] descriptor, and voila ... you can have undead of any alignment (including neutral, for mindless undead).

Although in 3.5, undead of any alignment do ping on a Detect Evil, despite lacking the [Evil] descriptor.

-Hyp.

 

[irdeggman]

Something to keep in mind is that there is a difference between "type" [Evil] and alignment.

Creatures with the type [Evil] always register as evil on detection spells and are effected by things that affect Evil creatures.

Things with an alignment of evil are likewise effected.

It is possible to have a creature with the type [Evil] and have a neutral of good alignment. And since by the RAW alignment is not always locked forever it is possible for a creature to change alignment over time, but changing type is much, much more difficult.

 

[Jebb_X]

My view is that, if the creature is not molested by any outside force, it will be of the alignment described, as that is its fundemental makeup, the very essence of its stuff. However, as always, there is an exception to the rule - redemption (in the case of Evil creatures).

However, as Knightfall said in post #5, it is always up to the individual game master. The rules are there as a basis of the system, a guide to resolve conflicts that cannot be resolved via deduction and conversation, where failure is a possibility of die rolls and bad decisions.

So; the overwhelming majority of that creature will be the alignment described, with very few, and extremely rare exceptions, that have been brought about by outside forces. Left to its own device, the creature will always be of the alignment given, it is born to that alignment (or created, conjured, summoned, bred, manufactured, or whatever). Only an outside force can change it. Or, at the GM's discretion, it could be changed on whim

Nothing is ever simple