D&D 5E Evil Vs. Neutral - help me explain?

[mlund]

In the Krynn setting it is pretty simple: would you murder an innocent child if I paid you enough money? If the answer is "yes," then you are evil. Period. If the answer is, "no," then the question is "where do you draw the line, and why?" For the most part, anyone willing to kill someone else who is harmless / benign for the sole reason that "somebody paid me to do it," is Evil by Krynn pantheon / cosmic order standards.

Heck, that was even true in the Greyhawk supplements of AD&D. The head of the Assassins' Guild was Evil (with Neutral Tendencies) he wouldn't kill children. He'd actively punish people who abused children. His disregard for the lives of adult humanoids, however, was so profound no among of orphan-saving could pull him out of the Evil category.

Marty Lund

 

[Lancelot]

I'm a combination of Mephista and Dausuul, in this thread.

I've got a player in my group who always plays his characters as (basically) Chaotic Neutral. He's unpredictable at best, and unmanageable at worst. He'll randomly decide to draw a blade on a non-hostile NPC if he's bored (or feeling aggressive), and he'll attempt diplomacy on a creature that the rest of the party regards as a hostile enemy - even if it means foregoing a smart combat action (i.e. "wasting" his turn, and making the fight more difficult for the others). He's ambivalent towards the campaign plot, gets side-tracked by the smallest things, and occasionally makes decisions by throwing a dice. What sorts of decisions? Oh, just small ones... like the character he's playing, which way he'll go in the dungeon, or whether he saves the princess or murders her.

Now, this is just nightmarish to DM. I'd prefer Lawful Evils any day of the week, because at least they have a code, and team spirit (of a sort), and can follow a plan. What's worse is that this player's alignment on his character sheet is almost never CN. It's often LG. The player is just incapable of roleplaying LG, however. It always ultimately ends up back at CN, because that's who he is. And, more importantly, that's how he enjoys the game.

Fortunately, he's a good guy and we enjoy playing with him. His mad antics have actually made for some incredibly memorable escapades and stories (and more than a few campaign-ending TPKs). But I long since came to Dausuul's conclusion. Alignment is a shorthand tool for monsters and NPCs only. Player characters are different. Whatever they've got written on their sheet is often irrelevant. For an Old School DM like me, that means throwing away all the 70's and 80's thinking of rewarding (or punishing) players who adhere to their alignments. Instead, you simply enforce "consequences" for their actions.

If the dude burns down an orphanage, it doesn't matter if he sees his alignment as LG, CN or NE. Someone is going to be mad. In a Dragonlance campaign, maybe the Knights of Solamnia are going to be sending a patrol to hunt down this criminal. Doesn't matter if the PC thinks he's LG; there are consequences to his actions.

For the record: I'd regard an NPC that acted purely out of greed, and was willing to commit violent or murderous acts, as Neutral Evil. They don't have much of a code, they're not thinking about long-term consequences, and they have no moral restraints. Evil (to me) isn't about making others suffer; it's about placing your own desires above others. The talk about saving kittens is a smoke screen. The character will save the kitten because it's his personal desire to save it (or he's getting paid to do so), not because it's morally the right thing to do (Good) or because it's the expected or convenient thing to do (Neutral). In my campaigns, any character who is purely self-motivated with no regard for others is at least partially Evil.

...but again, it doesn't matter for PCs. Let the players roll (role?) with whatever they want. Just make sure they reap the consequences.

 

[The Human Target]

Alignment has essentially zero mechanical impact in 5E. Have NPCs react based on his (known to them) behavior. If he's an assassin who'll kill anybody for money, and this is known, he'll get hostile reactions from Knights of Solamnia, clerics of Paladine, and pretty much anyone else with a shred of decency. When the player complains, simply point out "They don't know what your alignment is. They're reacting to what they know about you."

Then if he wants to write "Chaotic Neutral" on his character sheet instead of the "Neutral Evil" that he clearly is, fine. He can put "Lawful Good" if he wants. Won't change anything.

A million times this.

As long as he isn't being disruptive otherwise and you're fine having a hired killer character in the game, who cares?

 

[Umbran]

Running a Dragonlance game and a certain player is decidedly evil. If the job is to assassinate someone, he will assassinate them. If it is to save a kitten then he'll save the kitten. This is all done for the right price. The problem is he stands by the fact he is chaotic neutral and can do whatever he feels like because he "could" do something good any time he wants to.

In my games, alignment is descriptive, not proscriptive - alignment does not determine actions, it is determined *by* actions. It is the long-term average of what the character *has done*. Not what he or she "might do".

So, at the start of the campaign, the player declares the character to be CN. That means that, up to that point, the Good-Evil scales were balanced for them. Their behavior in game after that time determines what their alignment becomes. If, on the whole, the character has been nasty, mean, hurtful and so on... well, then he or she drifts into Evil.

Protestations that the character *could* do something Good at any moment mean nothing. An outright Evil character can also do Good things at any time! Their alignment doesn't stop them from having free will to act. So, slowly they could drift from Evil, to Neutral, to Good over time.

 

[Greenstone.Walker]

I've always though of it as:
Good characters go out of their way to help people, with no reward necessary.
Neutral characters won't go out of their way to hurt or harm people, unless there is some reward.
Evil characters go out of their way to harm people, with no reward necessary.

Faced with a number of choices:
The good character's priorities are probably "what harms the least people" followed by "what helps the most people" followed by "reward".
The neutral character's priorities are probably "reward".
The evil character's priorities are probably "what harms the most people" followed by "what helps the least people" followed by "reward".

 

[Quickleaf]

Running a Dragonlance game and a certain player is decidedly evil. If the job is to assassinate someone, he will assassinate them. If it is to save a kitten then he'll save the kitten. This is all done for the right price. The problem is he stands by the fact he is chaotic neutral and can do whatever he feels like because he "could" do something good any time he wants to.

Everyone in the group agrees that contract killing is an evil thing amd the his excessive motivation by greed is evil as well.. This player however thinks it isn't and all but flips out.

We all have our opinions on ethics but to craft a world I'm using RAW. It helps me craft the reactions of NPCs in a world that has firmly entrenched sides of good and evil. So how do I do this? He's even carrying a powerful magical artifact that is very evil but I'm not going to spill the goods to bribe him into being evil.

I think the real question is:

Is the player's behavior and way of playing their character a problem? In other words, does it come at the expense of the rest of the group's fun?

If, for example, you are asking "help me explain" but the sub-text is "help me convince my player to stop acting like an evil douche because this is Dragonlance and the PCs are supposed to be good guys"...then it's time for a frank talk with that player about the group's play expectations and the themes of the Dragonlance setting.

If, on the other hand, you're asking "help me explain" because you're hung up on the definition of an alignment, but it's not actually affecting your game, then who the heck cares? In 5e 'chaotic neutral' or 'neutral evil' are just descriptors with hardly any rules referring to alignment; even 5e's detect evil or good doesn't refer to alignment but to supernatural creature type. You could have the player write greedy mercenary in their alignment line and it would have just as much significance as any other alignment descriptor (and probably in this case be more accurate!).

 

[I'm A Banana]

Running a Dragonlance game and a certain player is decidedly evil. If the job is to assassinate someone, he will assassinate them. If it is to save a kitten then he'll save the kitten. This is all done for the right price. The problem is he stands by the fact he is chaotic neutral and can do whatever he feels like because he "could" do something good any time he wants to.

Listen - my Lawful Neutral monk can do whatever she wants to, too, but part of the question is "what do you want to do"?

To be Chaotic Neutral, your character should WANT the things a CN character values - independence, autonomy, individuality, etc. Doing jobs simply for money is not in and of itself Chaotic Neutral. It's at best "unaligned": money is useful. My Lawful Neutral monk could do jobs for the right price.

Everyone in the group agrees that contract killing is an evil thing amd the his excessive motivation by greed is evil as well.. This player however thinks it isn't and all but flips out.

Sounds like a bit of a party/player dissonance about what alignment means.

We all have our opinions on ethics but to craft a world I'm using RAW. It helps me craft the reactions of NPCs in a world that has firmly entrenched sides of good and evil. So how do I do this? He's even carrying a powerful magical artifact that is very evil but I'm not going to spill the goods to bribe him into being evil.

One way: have him take this test as his character. At the very least, it should get him thinking more about what alignments mean.

You might also wonder if alignments are adding much to your game - it doesn't do any harm to drop them if they're causing more arguments than they are inspiring interesting scenarios.

 

[Morlock]

I don't think your character really understands morality. Contract killers are evil. Nobody admits being evil, because for one thing practically nobody thinks of themselves that way, and for another, it's not good for your reputation. "I'm chaotic neutral" is the sort of BS evil characters are supposed to tell themselves. But when a player says it, you've probably got a creep on your hands (just a guess, YMMV).

Evil characters go out of their way to harm people, with no reward necessary.

I've always thought of that kind of characterization of evil as too kind to the evil, because it defines most of them out of the category. Sets a bar that's more like a mustache-twirling caricature than the real thing.

Sadists harm for pleasure (so, that's their reward). Evil people do it for reward. Neutral people lack the courage of conviction, like most folks. Good people try to do good and put a stop to evil.

Personally, I think alignment should be descriptive. As in, player controls character's behavior, and over time, the DM corrects the character's alignment to reflect that behavior. Ergo, the character in question is Neutral Evil. (Not that I'd force him to change his character sheet. He can put anything on his sheet that he likes, but for game purposes, he's what I decide, based on his behavior)

 

[Sunseeker]

Unless the setting explicitly spells out what it means to be of a certain alignment, and I'm not intimately familiar with Greyhawk's alignment options, I don't press my players on what their alignment is, I don't even ask. I don't anticipate someone is going to be running around shouting out their alignment, especially if it is potentially not a good one.

Personally, contracts are lawful things. Contracts for killing may or may not be lawful, depending on who you got them for, how you do it and what the laws of the land are. Players kill things all day long and they're only the "good" guys because their foes are "bad" so obviously there are times when killing is good, just as there are times when it is bad. So it really depends on who you're killing and how you're doing it.

Unless the player has actually done something good I'd say he's lawful evil.

 

[Morlock]

Personally, contracts are lawful things. Contracts for killing may or may not be lawful, depending on who you got them for, how you do it and what the laws of the land are. Players kill things all day long and they're only the "good" guys because their foes are "bad" so obviously there are times when killing is good, just as there are times when it is bad. So it really depends on who you're killing and how you're doing it.

If you take on murder contracts as a general rule, you're evil. I'd say a "good" character who routinely takes murder contracts on "bad" people is neutral at best, probably with evil tendencies, and is definitely flirting with evil.

I've got a player in my group who always plays his characters as (basically) Chaotic Neutral. He's unpredictable at best, and unmanageable at worst. He'll randomly decide to draw a blade on a non-hostile NPC if he's bored (or feeling aggressive), and he'll attempt diplomacy on a creature that the rest of the party regards as a hostile enemy - even if it means foregoing a smart combat action (i.e. "wasting" his turn, and making the fight more difficult for the others). He's ambivalent towards the campaign plot, gets side-tracked by the smallest things, and occasionally makes decisions by throwing a dice. What sorts of decisions? Oh, just small ones... like the character he's playing, which way he'll go in the dungeon, or whether he saves the princess or murders her.

CN does seem to draw the closet lunatics (in your player's case, someone with deep anti-social or authority issues). Personally, I see the "standard" CN character as a guy who's not looking to save the world, isn't looking to burn it, either, and doesn't put stock in social conventions or laws - except as warnings about consequences.