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

[pemerton]

Alignment, within the context of the D&D game, is an objective force.

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What this means is that, if the GM says that certain actions are Evil or Chaotic in his game, then that is a literal, inarguable truth about the world

This is a non-sequitur.

For instance, the question of whether or not my sword stroke will run the orc through is a question of objective forces, but the GM is not allowed to fiat it (and certainly is not allowed to fiat it into a miss): rather, we roll the dice.

More generally, the "objective" status of alignment is a truth within the fiction. But what I am talking about is who is the arbiter of that fiction. And my strong advice is that GM's who assert to themselves the unilateral power to tell the players' what the moral character of their PCs is, in circumstances of alignment disagreement, are setting themselves up for needless dispute and confrontation.

You might disagree with that. There could be at least two grounds for disagreeing: (1) in your experience, players shut up when the GM reiterates his/her unilateral conception of the shared fiction; (2) you think the dispute and confrontation that ensues if the player doesn't shut up is not needless.

I'm interested in hearing anything along the lines of (1) or (2) - or a (3), (4) etc that I haven't thought of - but just reiterating that alignment is objective isn't going to make me change my mind. I know it is. I'm talking about who, at the table, gets to author the facts about these objective forces.

The DM can overrule the entire table if they want something, and the only alternative is to walk away from the game.

Says who? I don't know if I've ever met a GM who took this view, and of the two I've played with who came close both had players walk and hence their campaigns collapse, so I don't think the policy served them very well.

My own view is that table consensus is preferable, and that the GM should be prepared to yield to the players when their ideas and reasons are better than his/hers. This includes ideas and reasons about what sort of conduct serves or disrespects what sort of values, and also what sorts of values are within the scope of good.

For example - when 5e first came out and we were still arguing if elves got the benefit of a full rest in four hours thanks to Trance, the DM said no. We at the table disagreed, then, instead of arguing, the entire group asked for a house rule to change it. We were shot down. Were we upset and frustrated? Yes. Did we have any choice other than quitting the game? Not really.

As you describe this, the whole episode sounds rather confrontational. Consistent with that spirit, I would have thought that the basic negotiating tactic is to threaten to quit the game.

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Lying, in the D&D verse, is generally considered a Chaotic attribute, irregardless of Good and Evil.

I think you are referring here only to 3E.

In Gygax's PHB, Lawful Good people are said to regard truth as of the highest value, while the Lawful Evil scorn it. In the Strategic Review article that has been referenced upthread, Gygax identifies honesty as one trait that exemplifies goodness.

So there is in fact a long tradition in D&D of identifying honesty as good, and dishonesty as evil.

Specifically, if the character is attempting to preserve beauty or liberty, that is generally considered to be a guiding principle of Chaotic Good.

Again, Gygax identifies beauty as something of great importance to the Lawful Good (but does not mention it in relation to the Chaotic Good), while it is another thing that the Lawful Evil scorn.

Forcing clerics to do what the ruler says is instead of following the tenants of their religion is not considered lawful good behavior.

Since when? What if the clerics serve a god who is misguided? (Eg they are druids, or are clerics of some peasant god who doesn't acknowledge the importance of urban civilisation.) There is nothing in D&D that suggests that Lawful Good is opposed to the use of coercion to produce right conduct, and in fact the prominence of paladins as part of the game suggests that Lawful Good positively embraces coercion as a means of producing right conduct or preventing wrongdoing.

In D&D, killing is not innately evil. However, murder for profit is.

In D&D, killing for profit is not per se evil: nearly all D&D PCs kill for profit (in the form of rewards, or loot) but many are not considered evil.

Murder is by definition wrongful killing, so of course murder is evil. But we haven't been told that this PC is a murderer in the strict sense, only that he would be willing to be one.

the PC is willing to kill anyone for the right price, negating your whole "the right targets" argument.

The difference, based off the information presented, is that the character can choose to do good things, but has established that he does do evil things. Not would, does.

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We've flat out been told that he will willing kill people for the sake of greed. While its not explicitly spelled out, its implied that innocents are on the menu for the right price.

We haven't been told that the PC has killed innocents for a price. All we've been told is that the PC would do so. But the player also says that the PC would do good things if s/he wanted to. Why is one set of boasting to be taken more seriously than the other? There are plenty of people who boast that they would do anything for a price who turn out not to be able to (eg they're too squeamish, or they turn out to have more of a conscience than they anticipated). How do we know that this PC is not such a person?

 

[eryndel]

More generally, the "objective" status of alignment is a truth within the fiction. But what I am talking about is who is the arbiter of that fiction.

Permit me to cut to the chase, here. Really the crux of this (very interesting ) debate is on who has the authority to make the call on the objective truth. In a vacuum, there can be myriad acceptable answers to this. Really, it's the setting that defines what actions lean to which alignment. In some games, the DM has the sole authority on matters of setting, where the players control how they interact with the setting they are provided. In other games, players have an equal hand in crafting the setting.

That said, I'm not convinced this pertains to the OP's original concern. He stated this was Dragonlance. That setting has always had it's own subtle take on alignment, driven by the meddling nature of the gods there. As a first step, I'd probably recommend seeing which god's tenets most resemble the character. If that is Chislev, Shinare, or even Sargonnas... I would try to match the character's alignment along those lines. See if the player accepts that, along with you reasons. It may be something along with what [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION] stated; he's picking CN to have the freedom to act as he (the player) wants.

But, in the end, this is Dragonlance. I don't care how much it says lawful good on the tin, if you start doing evil acts like genocide on the evil races or bringing out the thought police... The gods will throw a mountain at you. ;-)

 

[pemerton]

Permit me to cut to the chase, here. Really the crux of this (very interesting ) debate is on who has the authority to make the call on the objective truth.

Yep.

I'm not convinced this pertains to the OP's original concern. He stated this was Dragonlance. That setting has always had it's own subtle take on alignment, driven by the meddling nature of the gods there. As a first step, I'd probably recommend seeing which god's tenets most resemble the character. If that is Chislev, Shinare, or even Sargonnas... I would try to match the character's alignment along those lines. See if the player accepts that, along with you reasons. It may be something along with what Hussar stated; he's picking CN to have the freedom to act as he (the player) wants.

But, in the end, this is Dragonlance. I don't care how much it says lawful good on the tin, if you start doing evil acts like genocide on the evil races or bringing out the thought police

Sure, there might be some clear-cut cases, but we haven't been told the PC in question is doing either of these things (at least in the opinion of the player).

To me, it seems that if we cut to the chase what the OP has described is basically a social problem: the player wants to play and describe his PC one way, and the rest of the group disagrees. Just reiterating that the GM is the final arbiter, or reiterating setting assumptions, probably isn't going to solve the problem, because the player is probably not confused about either of those things.

I agree with you that talking about the reasons why the player wants to play and describe his PC this way is important.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

We haven't been told that the PC has killed innocents for a price. All we've been told is that the PC would do so. But the player also says that the PC would do good things if s/he wanted to. Why is one set of boasting to be taken more seriously than the other?

Because the PC, even if she or he has never killed anyone before (for money or otherwise), has actively taken steps towards making that a reality.

What do we know? This character has been described as someone who carries out contracts as stipulated. When others say that blanket contract killing (which *is* how the thing is described, by the way--"f the job is to assassinate someone, he will assassinate them" doesn't leave room for exceptions) is an evil thing, the player "flips out" about being called evil. If it were as simple as, "My character is an outright liar, maybe even self-deluded," I sincerely doubt the player would "flip out" for having that action called evil. It seems very, very clear that the player is entirely serious about the character performing any job, no matter how "dirty," for sufficient pay.

Yet on the flipside, we are not presented with any examples of what this character has done to be a "good" person. It may be the OP leaving out pertinent details because he's already drawn a conclusion, but we have no actual evidence that the "I COULD choose to do good things and not evil things" actually means anything. Even if it's not a completed act, we very clearly have mes rea here: the willingness, even *desire* to do terrible things. Since, y'know, "motivated by greed" implies actively seeking to make money this way, not merely accepting jobs if they happen to come along.

More or less, my problem is that there is a specific and clear set of evil things the character is ready and willing to do, regardless of who asks, which the character is specifically seeking to market as a valuable skill in order to make a large amount of money. Are there possible ways that could make this not quite so puppy-kickingly evil? Maybe. But based purely on what was said in the OP, it sounds pretty clear that the player even AGREES that contract-killing is an evil deed--but she or he "all but flips out" when told that doing evil things is what makes a person evil. On the flipside, the "good" things the character "could" do are left nebulous, ambiguous, or downright silly, e.g. "rescue a kitten." There's very clear intent and focus on the "doing evil" side, and a careless, even flippant attitude on the "doing good" side. That leads me to believe that the "I can stop whenever I want" argument is full of just as many holes as it would be coming from an addict's mouth.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

I don't think of Neutral as "moderate" of the D&D axis. I think that Neutral has its own definitions and positions. Personal freedom and achievement is the embodiment of CN, but CG embodies beauty, love, and life. CE is destruction and entropy. The three are all different.

Yes, that is the original AD&D conception. The 2e PHB described the alignments as points of a triangle, rather than points on an axis. Neutral is it's own thing rather than a middle ground.

I prefer 3e's take on it because it is less cerebral and makes alignment less of an in-world "thing" and more of just a way of describing personality and behavior. While @pemerton s philsophical-based alignment campaign idea is interesting, for general purpose D&D I think it's more accessible for players and creates less of an added-on element to just go with the simple axis system. I think either version works fine with the Planescape cosmology too.

While motivation isn't everything, I think it is very applicable to telling different types of killing apart. War is not murder. Self-defense or defense of others is not murder. Contract killing is, however, murder and thus evil.

Agreed, both have to be taken into account.

Lying, in the D&D verse, is generally considered a Chaotic attribute, irregardless of Good and Evil. Specifically, if the character is attempting to preserve beauty or liberty, that is generally considered to be a guiding principle of Chaotic Good.

One thing I like to do in my campaigns is define the honesty-category actions as both chaotic and evil to various degrees depending on the context. Stealing and lying usually hurts people in some way. A chaotic good character might see lying as only wrong if they think this particular instance actually is hurting someone. If they don't see it as harming anyone, then it's no problem. Neutral good characters might see lying as something you generally should avoid, but sometimes it might be the right thing to do (or the best out of some bad options). A strongly lawful good character might see lying as something that is always evil, even when the consequences may not be immediately apparent, and should never be done. Those are just some examples and could vary by individual. I just prefer not taking lying entirely off of the G/E axis just because it's also part of the L/C axis. It's one of those things that is multifacted.

The two - contract killing and good acts - are not on the same level.

That's a good point too. The way I run it evil acts tend to have more immediate weight than good acts. You generally aren't going to go from an evil alignment directly to a good alignment just by performing a good act, even a big one. More likely you'd start shifting through neutral and gradually arrive at good if your behavior and attitudes are shifting in that direction.

On the other hand, a good character can skip directly to evil with a heinous enough act. "Oh, but I only murder people occasionally, and I always give to orphans," isn't going to maintain a neutral alignment in my games, much less a good one.

 

[Tony Vargas]

This is a non-sequitur.

For instance, the question of whether or not my sword stroke will run the orc through is a question of objective forces, but the GM is not allowed to fiat it (and certainly is not allowed to fiat it into a miss): rather, we roll the dice.

I'd say he is allowed to do exactly that, he can call for the dice roll, or not, as he chooses. And, if I'm running a game, and I say that, then, as the DM, I'm right - even if the rules say otherwise, as that only means I've just changed them.

By the same token, if the DM has decided that morality and/or ethics are objective in his campaign setting (which might, imply, for instance, old-school takes on Detect Evil and the like), then he also makes himself the final arbiter of what falls on either side of those lines (or where along the spectrum each lies, if that's how he's treating it).

In D&D, killing for profit is not per se evil: nearly all D&D PCs kill for profit (in the form of rewards, or loot) but many are not considered evil.

Often indirectly, but sure. In classic D&D, murder for hire, the use of poisons, and a few other things were outright 'evil acts,' by the book, thus Assassins were automatically evil. In 5e, I'm not aware of anything having that status: it's up to the DM.