Alignment Question

[Samothdm]

This is the second time this situation has happened to my group:

The sorcerer character uses "sleep" on a group of enemies. The rest of the group mops up those that made their saving throws, and then one of the rogues (Chaotic Neutral) actually will go around and "coup-de-gras" the "sleeping" bad guys.

I've mentioned to him before that I see him slitting the throats of unarmed (or at least, non-threatening since they're sleeping) people as an evil act. He argues that these people are evil (they are) and that they attack the group. I argue that since they're now incapacitated, there's really no reason to kill them.

The group can't take the prisoners with them, though, and they don't want to just leave them since then the bad guys will just keep doing what they're doing. I've suggested tying them up and trying to deliver them to the authorities before they continue.

Ultimately, though, the real question is: is slitting the throats of sleeping opponents an evil act? I would think that doing this overtime would change this character's alignment to evil.

 

[candidus_cogitens]

It's only evil if they enjoy it.

If they could reasonably view it as necessary, then it would not be considered cruel. Cruelty is the basic criterion for what is considered evil.

A good-aligned character would want to preserve life as a general rule, but they might view evil creatures as an exception. It would be reasonable for a paladin, for example, to strive to expunge all evil creatures from the world, slaying them without a second thought, whether they were on guard or not.

Keep in mind that there is more than one way to be good, neutral or evil. Not all good characters think alike. The core criterion is just the degree to which they are compassionate or cruel. But how that gets played out in specifica circumstances could have a lot of variation.

 

[Artoomis]

You, as the DM, are the final say on what acts are evil and what are not in your campaign.

If you've made it clear that killing helpless foes (at least when you are no longer threatened by anyone else as is the case here) is an evil act, then so it is. Since you've already explained this, it is no longer negtotiable, and he's committed an evil act.

This would be a very serious problem for a Paladin.

In this case, he's CN, so what's the big deal? a CN is allowed to commit evil acts from time to time - as long as it is in his best interest, as it clearly seems to be here.

If he never does anything Good, this is an alignment problem. If he blances good and evil, then it's okay. In this case, perhaps the "evil" of killing them is balanced out by the "good" of preventing the future evil they would commit if allowed to live? In that case, sure, he's done a evil act. So what? Unless, of course, there are Good members of party, who should strenuously object to such conduct, of course - since you have made it clear such conduct is an evil act.

 

[kreynolds]

Ultimately, though, the real question is: is slitting the throats of sleeping opponents an evil act?

That seriously depends on the reasons for doing so. For instance, in the case of your group...

I've mentioned to him before that I see him slitting the throats of unarmed (or at least, non-threatening since they're sleeping) people as an evil act.

At the most, it would be an action of absolute neutrality, in the case of your group. They are killing them because they are evil, because they will just attack the party when they wake up, and because they can't leave them.

I've suggested tying them up and trying to deliver them to the authorities before they continue.

This would not be so much of a good act, but more of a lawful one, which is neither here nor there.

Alignment is always a matter of perspective.

 

[ouini]

It's up to the GM

Alignment is a vague concept. The designers tried to nail it down as much as they could, but in the end, it's up to the GM to decide what's good and what's evil. It isn't all pre-defined by the game, so whatever criterion you use, it will be pretty subjective.

I've been in pretty much the same situation as GM. I simply told the players to remember if non-evil people can kill helpless evils without repercussions, then evil people doing the same would be more than fair. That is, if a PC kills a helpless evil, don't expect that PC to ever wake up next time they're knocked unconscious when a baddie is around.

If it's a big issue with you, and you're willing to put some gaming energy into ethics, I think http://enworld.cyberstreet.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=9077 was an excellent thread for possible alternative ways of tracking alignment in 3E. It's worth a look.

candidus_cogitens wrote

It's only evil if they enjoy it ... It would be reasonable for a paladin, for example, to strive to expunge all evil creatures from the world, slaying them without a second thought, whether they were on guard or not ...

I'd disagree with these sentiments. You could set the standard of evil as enjoying killing, but it would be impossible to judge in play. And Paladins killing evil regardless of circumstances would be the same as evils killing good guys regardless of circumstances -- what you end up with is essentially two "gangs" with identical morality who simply kill each other on sight and have absolutely no other reason.

 

[Samothdm]

These are all good points. Looks like I'm in the minority for thinking that this is technically an evil act.

I tried to approach it from two standpoints:
1) The group of players are supposed to be the heroes. I don't allow evil players in my game, so CN is as close to evil as a player can get, I guess. But, as heroes I think that they should be setting an example. Random acts of violence should not be permitted. There's a neutral good cleric in the group, and a lawful good paladin (he wasn't here at this past session, though). I don't think they'd agree that slitting the throats of defenseless prisoners wasn't evil.

2) In a "real-world" scenario, if somebody came up to you on the street and got into a fight with you, would you slit his throat after knocking him unconscious? No. Granted, the fantasy world is different, but there are societies that still have laws that must be obeyed. I can't imagine this rogue's defense when brought before a magistrate being "Well, Your Honor. He was evil." That's just not going to cut it. Perhaps I should have the law crack down on these players a little more often.

Something similar happened to the group in which I'm a player a few weeks ago. The group had tracked down some circus or something and discovered a bunch of guys in the circus were evil. Our group had basically bluffed our way into the circus and we had free-reign, so to speak, to ask anybody anything. Then, without provocation, our group (I wasn't there) attacked the guys in the circus "because they were evil" and then just left the bodies laying there. That doesn't seem right to me. There has to be a line drawn between good and evil. "Good" characters should not just attack evil NPCs without provocation just because the NPCs are evil. That just doesn't seem to make sense to me.

But, you've all brought up some interesting points. Maybe I'm being a little too literal on this one.

 

[Artoomis]

No, no - stick by your word.

You said it was an evil act after discussing it with your players. Don't change it now - your outlook is quite valid.

The cleric and paladin should definately be there to prevent these acts though - no "ends justifies the means" argument should sway them. Also, the idea of the local law catching up with them is a good one - see Piratecat's Story Hour for a good example of how local law and politics can be integrated into a campaign.

 

[Stalker0]

I think this argument pushes the law vs chaos more than the good vs evil concept.

I used to play a paladin, and one of the other PC's created an evil character. I was a newbie player at the time, so I basically went nuts trying to kill that character. Everyone else was furious at me, but I thought it was okay because "I'm a paladin, I kill evil creatures"

We eventually decided that it was my lawful alignment that would forbid it, that I stuck to a code of honor. It would be alright for me to capture the PC and deliver him to the authorities if I saw a crime commited. It would be alright for me to challenge him to fair and just combat. But to just relentlessly kill him was no good.

Lawful characters are supposed to respect the law, and part of that respect is to know that unless specifically appointed, they are the not the executers of law. I think a Chaotic Good character could do all the horrific acts and justify it rationally. But a lawful good character would know that evil acts are to judged by magistrates according to the law, not by their own ideas of justice.

 

[KarinsDad]

Alignment is one of the toughest concepts to both understand, and to agree upon with others.

Let's take a different example:

1) PCs raid the lair of a bunch of evil Orcs.
2) PCs kill Orcs.
3) PCs loot bodies.

What did they just do here?

They murdered and robbed.

Happens all of the time in DND.

Is it evil to do this? Yes, typically.

Can the PCs justify doing it by saying that they are protecting a community or something? Yes, typically.

However, without conflict, the game would be boring and nobody would play it.

Hence, it is easier to justify killing and theft by using evil vs. good alignment differences than it is to sit down and attempt to rationalize every single combat:

1) They attacked first, so it was self defense.

2) They were raiding nearby settlements and caravans, so it was Outlaw Justice.

3) They were minding their own business in a dungeon 500 miles from the closest settlement and we had a quest to get a magical gem from there, and we broke in, and ah, err, well you see, ah... THEY ATTACKED FIRST. Yeah, that's it!


I once played one session as an NPC Paladin in a campaign of very high level characters. We entered this pyramid-like structure and captured the powerful neutral dragon that lived there. The other "good PCs" then proceeded to loot the place. I spoke up and said that doing that was not right since the dragon was not evil and was an intelligent creature. Looting the place was tantamount to theft.

The other players got incensed and started shouting that the Paladin wouldn't ever say that. The DM settled it by saying that the "good characters" could atone later, but that the quest they were on was to save the world and the ends justified the means.

Needless to say, that was the only time I played with those people.


With regard to your original question, I would agree with you. Typically, it is evil to slit the throats of sleeping opponents with a few basic exceptions.

1) If the creatures are convicted outlaws (i.e. already convicted of crimes and sentenced to death already, or marauding monsters in a given area where the local authorities have a shoot on sight type of order outstanding), then it is permissible, although not necessarily preferable, to execute them in the field.

2) In times of war when dealing with enemies, again, it is preferable to capture, but not necessarily required.

3) The creature(s) is generally viewed as mindless or exceptionally violent or an exceptional threat. This covers a wide range of possibilities, but typically the threat has to be sufficient such that no other option exists (assuming we are not talking about case #2 or #3). So, killing a bunch of helpless Orcs 500 miles from civilization would generally be considered murder, at least by any enlightened society not plagued by Orcs on a re-occurring basis (Dwarves might think differently for example). Killing a powerful evil necromancer who is planning on attacking some cities with his minions, even if the cities are 500 miles away, would generally be considered justice and not murder.

Typically, most societies would view it as murder or vigilantism if you kill intelligent creatures without following the laws of the society with respect to how it is done. I would tend to doubt that there would be many societies that would view killing a creature "because it is evil" or "because it might seek revenge on us" as sufficient justification, although some such groups or societies might exist in a given campaign world.

The actions of characters, though, should be judged based on the type of society the individual characters come from.

 

[AuraSeer]

IMO, alignment is just an indicator of how you've behaved in the past-- like a sliding scale. Doing good deeds moves you toward the upper end; bad deeds move you the other way. (Law/Chaos is a separate scale, but it works the same way.) Spells like Detect Evil take a glance at your soul, add up the total points for evil and good, and figure out which way you're leaning.

If a LG wizard suddenly decides to chuck a Bigby's Crushing Tactical Nuke into the local nunnery, he's perfectly free to do so. No cosmic police squad is going to suddenly pop up and say, "Halt! You're violating your alignment!" All that happens is that he accumulates some Evil Points(tm). Unless he has an awful lot of Goodie Points(tm) to balance that out, his soul is now probably more dark than light, which means he may start showing up on Detect Evil.

Neutrality just means a balance between the extremes. So you should expect your CN rogue to do evil just as often as he does good. If he never did evil acts, he'd be CG, see?

If the rogue does more evil than good, you should warn him that he's in danger of an alignment change. Since you don't allow evil characters, anyone who becomes evil should automatically become an NPC. Once you feel that he's crossed the line, tell him that his alignment has changed, and then give him maybe one or two sessions to turn himself around. Unless he makes an obvious effort to stop doing so much evil, you yank the character sheet out from under his pencil, and tell him to roll up a new character. With a different alignment this time.