Alignment - just how evil is hiring an assassin?

[Malachai_rose]

evil ?

Okay I read Docs story so I am familiar with the circumastances of the crime as they were posted.

You had a high level PC that was embittered towards anothe rPC because of past actions the PC made while under a spell (charmed). The PC is a little chaotic (not evil just funny like that), SO the PC in question decides that he must be evil and hires an assasin to kill the PC.

1) As a high level PC the character could have easily established alignment and determined that the PC was not evil (I believe the PC was actually good).

2) Highering and paying an evil aligned character is evil... You just don't know what the assasin will use the money for later. Buy 200 pounds of wyern poison and kill a village of Nuns and children ? maybe... point is you just don't know.

3) supporting evil either financially or by your actions is evil. If I paid Osama Bin Laden to blow up Sadam Hussien and then he turned around and used the money to buy a nuke and blew up kansas I would be responsible for financing him.

4) I realize points 3 and 4 were the same but <shrugs>

5) One action may not make you evil but another poster hit it on the head. It is far easier to fall then it is to redeem oneself.

Well thats my reasoning, Dartan may not be evil but he sure as heck is sliding down that slippery slope. I would expect to see Dartan reappear as a NE Badguy that has a vendetta to settle with Jamison later down the road.

 

[Squire James]

Obviously there are rules that apply in D&D that do not apply in the real world. No, I'm not talking about things like Kevlar vests not making it harder for a bullet to hit, I'm talking about the nature of Good and Evil. The superhero comic genre has very similar rules (usually with the additional rule that villains must be preserved so they can be used again). The main rules in "fighting the good fight", IMO, are:

1. Evil exists. With a capital E.

2. The adventurers are probably the world's best hope for stopping Evil from doing what they want to do.

3. Going out on a quest to kill Evil beings is a valid way to stop them.

Campaigns that lack these 3 rules probably shouldn't be worrying about little things like alignment (at least the Good/Evil axis) and should go their merry moral-relativist way. Who cares whether hiring an assassin is Evil if Evil doesn't exist, or is indistinguishable from Good?

Now, given the 3 rules given above (which I hope aren't specific enough to be considered a "strawman argument"), hiring an assassin is an attempt to circumvent Rule #2, and thus should be considered a Bad Thing. You're not only not "fighting the good fight", you are actively avoidng it. So even if you don't consider it Wrong (which I do), it is most certainly contrary to Good (ie: Evil).

 

[Jürgen Hubert]

1. Evil exists. With a capital E.

2. The adventurers are probably the world's best hope for stopping Evil from doing what they want to do.

3. Going out on a quest to kill Evil beings is a valid way to stop them.

Interesting. While my current GURPS Warhammer doesn't have alignments for PCs as such, the following rules still apply:

1. Evil exists. Or rather, Chaos. With a capital C.

2. The adventurers are probably the world's best hope for stopping Chaos from doing what it wants to do - because they are the first to notice it, because they hold most of the clues, or just because they are unlucky.

3. Going out on a quest to kill Chaotic beings is a valid way to stop them.

However, it goes further than that - I allow the PCs to try any way of stopping the forces of Chaos that is in their means. Hiring assassins would certainly not be out of the question, even if they haven't done this before. Sometimes, these actions could be called "evil" themselves (one of them is a self-professed "witch hunter"...). Often, these actions will have consequences. Sometimes, they won't.

All in all, I will leave the question whether the PCs are "good" or not to the PCs themselves. So far, they have managed to stay "nice", with the occasional screw-up or two...

 

[green slime]

Assassination is Evil. No two ways about it.

Hiring an assassin is an evil act.

Not every conflict must be resolved with a murderous slaying.

An assassin kills the target regardless of pleas for mercy, or any sign of remorse from the target.

My players seriously consider taking prisoners these days. After refusing the surrender of a group of goblins, one goblin ran away and threw himself out of a second story window and fell to his death in an attempt to escape the certain death being meted out by the players.

Assassin's don't take prisoners.

 

[Hand of Evil]

This is going to get ugly...

Mmmm, let me see. If I get to say 'he is evil' and say it is for the greater good (could be my own) then it is okay. I don't think so.

 

[Tom Cashel]

This always gets ugly.

Grist for the mill: in medieval thought (not that the ethics of your typical D&D world are necessarily the same as medieval thought, but it's closer than what we've got...)

Anyway, in medieval thought it was NOT "murder" to kill someone in a duel, or a barfight, or a brawl, or what-have-you. You could get in a squabble with someone over unpaid rent and, like Christopher Marlowe, get stabbed in the eye and killed and that was your tough luck.

What WAS considered "murder" was to kill someone by stealth. In their sleep, with poison, etc. was the lowest of the lowest ways to do someone in.

Hiring someone else to do it would not only make you evil, but also a coward.

And Zappo, I didn't say gamers were incapable of having an RPG discussion without bringing RL issues into the mix...I said that gamers are the scum of the earth.

Love ya,
Thomas Cashel Fitzmaurice O'Boyle O'Flynn

KMRIA

 

[WizarDru]

Anyway, in medieval thought it was NOT "murder" to kill someone in a duel, or a barfight, or a brawl, or what-have-you. You could get in a squabble with someone over unpaid rent and, like Christopher Marlowe, get stabbed in the eye and killed and that was your tough luck.

Sure it was...but in the case of most such fights, it was a civil problem beneath the notice of the lords, except as such when a sheriff or other personage was set to keep the peace. In some cases, hideous tortures were carried out for relatively simple crimes, such as public drunkedness. The "justice" of the medieval mindset was often as evil as the crimes they purported to punish or prevent.

And duels could easily be considered murder (and often were by disgruntled relatives) when a highly skilled duelist called out someone he knew to far inferior to him, often on a manufactured insult. Heck, even Mercutio is considered to have been murdered, as he was considered an excellent duelist.

All of which seems irrelevant to me. Part of the issue here is resolving D&D's alignment system, it's game philosophy and moral systems both there and IRL. There are clear differences, with D&D having a much more clear-cut and simplified system, that often can lead to some interesting twists. A large part of your interpetation of the act depends on your personal philosophy.

Some people consider murder to be evil, no matter what the justification. A valid viewpoint, but I find it hard to understand how they can play D&D then, given that a large part of the game involves the wanton murder of other creatures...monsters or not. D&D features concrete ways to determine if a particular being is evil or not, and even how evil they are. Sending a paladin to slay a red dragon that terrorizes the countryside is little different than hiring a mercenary to waylay an evil duke who is taxing and bullying his subjects into starvation. An oversimplification, yes, but for the purpose of illustration.

IMHO, the hiring of an evil being to destroy an evil being may or may not be an evil act, depending on the circumstances and intent. If a bard tricks an assasain into eliminating the evil necromancer, is that evil? If a paladin is dispatched to liberate a town from the clutches of a murderous vampire, is that murder? Is it evil? What if the vampire is the legitimate authority for the area, by birthright? What if the 'bloody baron' isn't a vampire, at all, but just an evil lord with powerful allies, many armed men and has a penchant for raping and pillaging his own people?

It's a great big slippery slope, and not an easy field to navigate. But considering this is a game where whole races of beings are pegged as 'just plain evil', it shouldn't be surprising.

What WAS considered "murder" was to kill someone by stealth. In their sleep, with poison, etc. was the lowest of the lowest ways to do someone in.

Hiring someone else to do it would not only make you evil, but also a coward.

Unless, of course, you were a woman or royalty, or better yet, an Italian woman of royalty, famous for poisoning her rivals.

 

[Vaxalon]

Historically, "cowardice", "honor", and other such terms have not been applicable to women.

 

[Malachai_rose]

back on track

I think were wayyy off track here (though it is interesting). Doc asked about a specific situation ie... Dartan hiring an evil assain to kill Jamison. In these circumstances given jamison is not evil and Dartan could have very easily have verified this fact, Dartan commited an evil act. That may not make Dartan evil but it sure goes a loonnggg ways in that direction. Especially given the fact that Dartans original hate on for Jamison was based on actions Jamison took whil under the influence of a spell, so Jamison really wasn't even responsible for those actions. At least not enough to warrant getting a contract put out on you by your former buddy and pal.

 

[Meridian]

In a recent session, a PC in my game (CN) hired an assassin to murder another PC in the party. The first PC had every reason to believe that the second was evil and would bring down death and worse on the party and world.

A big debate popped up about whether hiring an assassin is:

A. Certainly not good, but understandable considering the circumstances. A means to an end.

B. Incredibly evil. If you want someone dead, you should have the courage to do the job yourself.

Let's break it down:

One: Murder is the *unlawful* killing of one sentient being by another (a broader definition than what's in the real-world law books and dictionaries, but not inappropriate). Conversely, in a situation where the law does not rule on killing as an act with punitive consequences, it is not against the law, therefore, it isn't murder.

Two. Societal conditioning will influence an individual's reaction and feelings about a sentient being killing another. Societal conditioning is also responsible for furthering the considerations of defining and choosing between good and evil.

Three: A tool, by several definitions, can be something used to accomplish a task, or someone used to further another's plans (ofttimes without their conscious assent, to deepen the similarities between the inanimate and animate forms of tools.)
Barring all else, a tool can be used as a weapon, a weapon can be used as a tool, and a tool and weapon can be one and the same.

Four. By previous definitions, an assassin is a tool or weapon used to kill, its sentience notwithstanding. In a society whose laws contain sanctions against murder, it is an illegal profession. In a society without those sanctions in law, the profession of assassin can flourish. The use of an assassin would be considered an evil act if taking sentient life against the conscious will of the victim is considered evil by the society in which the act took place.

Five. Courage is the state or quality of mind or spirit that enables one to face danger, fear, or vicissitudes with self-possession, confidence, and resolution. It doesn't take courage to kill, just the will to do it. It takes more courage *not* to take another's life when it is expedient and one's self-interest to do so, since deliberately and knowing placing one's self-preservation at risk by avoiding taking a life when one could do it without consequence to oneself would fall at least on the lighter side of neutral, if not good.

If using DnD alignment to chart actions, the degree to which one pursues one's self-interest *to the detriment of others* is usually the ruler for degrees of good and evil. The *method* of pursuing one's self-interest is a chart for law and chaos. Killing someone or something to prevent them from harming someone else classifies as a good act; killing someone because they threatened you or anything you regard as yours falls in the category of neutral vs good & evil; and killing someone because you felt like it would be evil. Your readiness to implement that drastic a solution is also an indicator of the degree of good or evil.

In the DnD Alignment Graph, killing to defend from evil is not considered an evil act, although by our society's broader considerations, it is. Affected by this graph, hiring an assassin to assassinate an evil warlord would not be considered an evil act; by our society's standards, it would be an evil act despite the good intent.

Under the DnD Alignment Graph, hiring an assassin is not in itself an evil act. It's just another tool; it's to what use the assassin is put that makes it a good or evil act. If a true neutrally-aligned druid hired an assassin to take out a lawful good king who had refused to halt civilized progress into the druid's woods, it would be an act defending one's self-interest. Ideally, killing would not be the first resort, because that would definitely place the act itself into the evil category, marking a tick for the druid's alignment to shift that way. We would assume that the druid either exhausted as many possibilities as he thought were timely or applicable before resorting to killing the king.

An assassin is always aligned evil because killing is a tool that he or she is ready to use at a moment's notice as a first, last, or median resort...at least, that would be my rationale.

All this to say that, according to official DnD alignment, hiring an assassin to kill someone as punishment for an act that resulted in the harm of others would probably be chaotic (since it was in essence a betrayal of companionship and an usurpation of due process) and a neutral act leaning slightly toward evil, because it was justified by the record of the victim and threatened a self-interest. However, if evidence proved that having the target assassinated would result in a clear proliferation of evil, then it was an act of self-interest that would result in the harm of others and thereby evil. Either way, the GM would have to decide if it was an act that justified an alignment *against everything else* the character has done in his career. Personally, since the character is CN and I haven't heard too much of his history, I think he is justified, although another such similar act performed right on the heels of this one would tip him over.

In the above case, I would have to say that the CN was basically holding a grudge against the bespelled character, and that hiring an assassin to kill someone based on his past behavior, while not nice, isn't evil enough to justify an alignment change. It's just nasty.

I hope my "thinking out loud" made some kind of sense.