FormerlyHemlock
Hero
Interesting. If you played your CG character at my table you'd discover that he's actually CN. And your CN guy is CE.
D&D 5E Evil Vs. Neutral - help me explain?
- Thread starter DMCF
- Start date
Interesting. If you played your CG character at my table you'd discover that he's actually CN. And your CN guy is CE.
Sword of Spirit
Legend
The funny thing is that some editions of the game actually tell us the criteria for good and evil in D&D and yet people continue to debate those very aspects that have already been spelled out for us in core books. I'm not talking about the subtleties of interpreting the finer points, but rather the points the designers were carefully defining. In other words, before any alignment discussion, reading the dang books ought to be required!
Different editions defined things a bit differently. AD&D was kind of annoying in how they did it, because it poorly represented, you know, people. They tended to see most creatures as good or evil, lawful or chaotic, with neutrality as this narrow ribbon in the middle for oddballs. Because of that, they defined true neutral and chaotic neutral in weird ways. (Lawful neutral got a reasonably believable description, oddly enough.)
4e was a bit different, but it was reasonably clear.
And 3e did it the best.* They painstakingly explained what the terms meant. Unlike AD&D they made the alignments make sense. Most regular people on earth would be neutral. Neutrality is a broad band of alignment, with good and evil, law and chaos being the extremes.
Here is exactly where the dividing lines between good, neutral, and evil were set in 3e:
"People who are neutral with respect to good and evil have compunctions against killing the innocent but lack the commitment to make sacrifices to protect or help others. Neutral people are committed to others by personal relationships."
If you don't have compunctions against killing the innocent, you are evil. Period. To be good you have to be willing to go out of your way to make sacrifices to protect or help others. In other words, you have to be what we would call "heroic" in our non-fantasy lingo.
Most people like to think of themselves as "good people" but the majority of decent earthlings would be "neutral" in 3e D&D.
I think any discussion of alignment should really be prefaced by which version of the game you are basing it on. I favor 3e because it makes sense and you can place actual people into an alignment, but at least discussion could come from the same basis for understanding if people were clear which edition they were going with.
Otherwise I really have no interest in alignment debates. If you're going to throw out the D&D source material, you might as well discuss it on a philosophy or religion forum rather than a D&D forum.
/rant off
* 5e is more concise and vague, but is more like 3e than any other
Different editions defined things a bit differently. AD&D was kind of annoying in how they did it, because it poorly represented, you know, people. They tended to see most creatures as good or evil, lawful or chaotic, with neutrality as this narrow ribbon in the middle for oddballs. Because of that, they defined true neutral and chaotic neutral in weird ways. (Lawful neutral got a reasonably believable description, oddly enough.)
4e was a bit different, but it was reasonably clear.
And 3e did it the best.* They painstakingly explained what the terms meant. Unlike AD&D they made the alignments make sense. Most regular people on earth would be neutral. Neutrality is a broad band of alignment, with good and evil, law and chaos being the extremes.
Here is exactly where the dividing lines between good, neutral, and evil were set in 3e:
"People who are neutral with respect to good and evil have compunctions against killing the innocent but lack the commitment to make sacrifices to protect or help others. Neutral people are committed to others by personal relationships."
If you don't have compunctions against killing the innocent, you are evil. Period. To be good you have to be willing to go out of your way to make sacrifices to protect or help others. In other words, you have to be what we would call "heroic" in our non-fantasy lingo.
Most people like to think of themselves as "good people" but the majority of decent earthlings would be "neutral" in 3e D&D.
I think any discussion of alignment should really be prefaced by which version of the game you are basing it on. I favor 3e because it makes sense and you can place actual people into an alignment, but at least discussion could come from the same basis for understanding if people were clear which edition they were going with.
Otherwise I really have no interest in alignment debates. If you're going to throw out the D&D source material, you might as well discuss it on a philosophy or religion forum rather than a D&D forum.
/rant off
* 5e is more concise and vague, but is more like 3e than any other
More of my personal, idiosyncratic view of alignment:
True, but not particularly useful, IMO. I think good people are almost incapable of killing innocents. And I find it easy to imagine evil people having compunctions after killing innocents. I'd see neutral people as having strong to moderate compunctions after killing innocents.
A stereotypically good person would probably rather die than kill an innocent. You'd have to break him down with extended torture first. A neutral person would take some very strong persuading, but he'd do it eventually, if you made it clear one of them was going to die. A weakly evil person would want to make sure he had no other options before killing an innocent, just because murder's a good way to get yourself in big trouble, but that out of the way he'd do it and feel little remorse, because hey, he was forced into it. A strongly evil person would try to negotiate a fee for killing an innocent. A diabolically evil person would be planning to kill the innocent and take his stuff before anyone demanded it.
IMO YMMV caveat emptor, etc.
Side note: anyone else ever made the connection between arrogance/honor and morality? Personally, I see it in myself. I see a lot of immoral behavior as low and beneath me. It angers me when I see others do dirt, and lowers my respect for them.
True, but not particularly useful, IMO. I think good people are almost incapable of killing innocents. And I find it easy to imagine evil people having compunctions after killing innocents. I'd see neutral people as having strong to moderate compunctions after killing innocents.
A stereotypically good person would probably rather die than kill an innocent. You'd have to break him down with extended torture first. A neutral person would take some very strong persuading, but he'd do it eventually, if you made it clear one of them was going to die. A weakly evil person would want to make sure he had no other options before killing an innocent, just because murder's a good way to get yourself in big trouble, but that out of the way he'd do it and feel little remorse, because hey, he was forced into it. A strongly evil person would try to negotiate a fee for killing an innocent. A diabolically evil person would be planning to kill the innocent and take his stuff before anyone demanded it.
IMO YMMV caveat emptor, etc.
Side note: anyone else ever made the connection between arrogance/honor and morality? Personally, I see it in myself. I see a lot of immoral behavior as low and beneath me. It angers me when I see others do dirt, and lowers my respect for them.
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Sword of Spirit
Legend
(Deleted, because I realized I had nothing to say)
FormerlyHemlock
Hero
Well put. That's the concept I use too, only apparently 3E says it much more eloquently.
I'd XP you if I could figure out how to do so via Tapatalk.
machineelf
Explorer
A neutral character might spot a drowning man and watch what happens. An evil character might find a pole and push him under. 
A good person is remorseful for evil acts. The will seek to repent or correct the stain on their soul.
A evil person joyful for evil acts. They take pleasure in them.
A neutral person is justifiable by the evil act. They have an excuse for the act.
A evil person joyful for evil acts. They take pleasure in them.
A neutral person is justifiable by the evil act. They have an excuse for the act.
IMO this defines ordinary folks into the good category, and leaves neutral and evil for the outliers (your neutral guy sounds kind of like a sociopath). I prefer to leave neutral for the more ordinary folks.
It would make more sense, IMO, if the evil guy rescued the drowning man, just to rob his pockets.
I see that sort of evil as "especially" evil. It doesn't work well for me as a definition. Most evil I see is utilitarian; people who do dirt to get what they want, which is typically the same stuff most people want: power, money, fame, sex, political agenda, etc.
Yeah, that's evil IMO.
Take Avon Barksdale and Stringer Bell. They don't get pleasure out of dirty deeds, they do them for utilitarian reasons. But they're clearly evil, IMO, and would rather kill someone than risk a pay cut or a challenge to their lifestyles. Dragging down their own social milieu by pumping cheap heroin into it certainly doesn't bother them; instead, they see an opportunity for advancement.
The citizens of Baltimore are typically neutral. They don't particularly like what Barksdale & Bell are up to, but they sure as hell aren't going to take any risks to stop them.
Someone like Dee, Avon's nephew, was flirting with good in prison before he died; he distanced himself from Avon at some personal risk, because he didn't like what Avon was up to.
The citizens of Baltimore are typically neutral. They don't particularly like what Barksdale & Bell are up to, but they sure as hell aren't going to take any risks to stop them.
Someone like Dee, Avon's nephew, was flirting with good in prison before he died; he distanced himself from Avon at some personal risk, because he didn't like what Avon was up to.
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eryndel
Explorer
So, as counterpoint (with pop culture spoilers).A neutral character might spot a drowning man and watch what happens. An evil character might find a pole and push him under.
By that example, the pretty epic scene in Breaking Bad where Jane chokes on her own vomit highlighted Walt's descent into... neutrality??!?
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